I can’t make strong claims here, as I go to bars and clubs fairly rarely. But I second the observation that it might be different in urban vs. rural areas, or (I add) different based on type of club. For example, the bar in my dad’s family’s extremely small hometown is the local gathering spot for those who want to have a beer with friends, which is very different from the loud, confusing, crowded dance clubs where you’re packed in like sardines with people you don’t know and can’t even see clearly. I think a valid analysis has to segregate by type of bar/club. The small-town bar I’m thinking of does have live entertainment and dancing (also darts, which wouldn’t work in a darkened environment where many people are quite drunk), but it’s a very different scene.
With respect specifically to the loud, dark, crowded places, lots of people find those off-putting and don’t go, or go rarely. It is fairly common advice to look elsewhere rather than at bars/clubs for dates. But: for someone who is young and anxious and not very sure how to meet people for dates/sex, going out with friends and getting moderately to very intoxicated in a place where you will also meet people you don’t know who are in a similar situation, is a way to overcome that barrier. And the fact you can’t really tell what’s going on 10 feet away, can’t hear what other people are saying very well, and everyone is expecting this to be an environment where people are drinking, means this is a more forgiving environment to do/try things that might be judged inappropriate and/or unacceptable in other environments. If you do something very obvious to indicate your sexual interest in someone in most public places, security may be called, but on the dance floor of a club, standards of acceptable behaviour are more lax, and behaviours themselves are less consistently observable. Also, if you try something with one person and get rebuffed, few to none of the other people will know it happened, so you can try again with someone else shortly thereafter. So my sense is that there are (or, were last time I checked, which admittedly was a few years ago) a lot of young (late teens to early 20′s) people bumbling their drunken way through social interactions in clubs. I’m sure plenty of them do leave the club together and have sex, but it’s hard to know for sure. Another thought: By reputation and it seems by design, clubs are places where bad decisions are made, and so if you want to stress less about your decision-making around sex and just go have some with someone fairly random who you don’t know well (many people will not want to do this, but some do), clubs give you license to do so. Or you think of yourself as not particularly worthy of the attention of those you may be interested in and so you figure you might have a better short if everyone’s drunk and can’t see each other very well, a club is a place where this will be true.
I started this whole train of thought by considering the sentence “Yet in my admittedly-limited experience of actual bars and clubs, I basically never see such matching?”, and thinking that that’s true for me as well, but I do (did, when I went) see people trying to get laid—and by its nature, the environment of a club is not conducive to my monitoring the social interactions of the people around me to see how they’re going, so I wouldn’t expect to know for sure based on what I observe while in a club, who went home with who. You learn that after the fact, if your friends tell you they hooked up.
I also saw a lot of guys sitting on the sidelines and drinking, trying to build up the “liquid courage” to initiate a conversation with someone they might like the look of, and a lot of women dancing in groups, so that they can be visible without being too vulnerable.
If you don’t like alcohol but can act disinhibited anyway, does that work too? (Also there’s the issue of whether your partner is too intoxicated to give consent...)
I am not the right person to ask about what works well in clubs, as I wouldn’t say my experiences at clubs were particularly successful or enjoyable, but I very much doubt anyone would kick you out of a club for not drinking or anything like that, so give it a shot and see how it goes? You get to decide what “works” for you, in this situation, and if you had a good time that’s a success.
As for the issue of consent while very intoxicated, yes that is an issue.
I very much doubt anyone would kick you out of a club for not drinking or anything like that, so give it a shot and see how it goes
I got in a few dance battles in clubs while sober, was pretty fun. Had my first crowdsurf while sober in a club too.
The fun sober club experience very much depends on good music, being in the mood, being with friends who are very fun and you trust very deeply, etc, imo. oh, and being the kind of person who really likes music, dancing, kinda enjoys doing dumb shit, etc
I can’t make strong claims here, as I go to bars and clubs fairly rarely. But I second the observation that it might be different in urban vs. rural areas, or (I add) different based on type of club. For example, the bar in my dad’s family’s extremely small hometown is the local gathering spot for those who want to have a beer with friends, which is very different from the loud, confusing, crowded dance clubs where you’re packed in like sardines with people you don’t know and can’t even see clearly. I think a valid analysis has to segregate by type of bar/club. The small-town bar I’m thinking of does have live entertainment and dancing (also darts, which wouldn’t work in a darkened environment where many people are quite drunk), but it’s a very different scene.
With respect specifically to the loud, dark, crowded places, lots of people find those off-putting and don’t go, or go rarely. It is fairly common advice to look elsewhere rather than at bars/clubs for dates. But: for someone who is young and anxious and not very sure how to meet people for dates/sex, going out with friends and getting moderately to very intoxicated in a place where you will also meet people you don’t know who are in a similar situation, is a way to overcome that barrier. And the fact you can’t really tell what’s going on 10 feet away, can’t hear what other people are saying very well, and everyone is expecting this to be an environment where people are drinking, means this is a more forgiving environment to do/try things that might be judged inappropriate and/or unacceptable in other environments. If you do something very obvious to indicate your sexual interest in someone in most public places, security may be called, but on the dance floor of a club, standards of acceptable behaviour are more lax, and behaviours themselves are less consistently observable. Also, if you try something with one person and get rebuffed, few to none of the other people will know it happened, so you can try again with someone else shortly thereafter. So my sense is that there are (or, were last time I checked, which admittedly was a few years ago) a lot of young (late teens to early 20′s) people bumbling their drunken way through social interactions in clubs. I’m sure plenty of them do leave the club together and have sex, but it’s hard to know for sure. Another thought: By reputation and it seems by design, clubs are places where bad decisions are made, and so if you want to stress less about your decision-making around sex and just go have some with someone fairly random who you don’t know well (many people will not want to do this, but some do), clubs give you license to do so. Or you think of yourself as not particularly worthy of the attention of those you may be interested in and so you figure you might have a better short if everyone’s drunk and can’t see each other very well, a club is a place where this will be true.
I started this whole train of thought by considering the sentence “Yet in my admittedly-limited experience of actual bars and clubs, I basically never see such matching?”, and thinking that that’s true for me as well, but I do (did, when I went) see people trying to get laid—and by its nature, the environment of a club is not conducive to my monitoring the social interactions of the people around me to see how they’re going, so I wouldn’t expect to know for sure based on what I observe while in a club, who went home with who. You learn that after the fact, if your friends tell you they hooked up.
I also saw a lot of guys sitting on the sidelines and drinking, trying to build up the “liquid courage” to initiate a conversation with someone they might like the look of, and a lot of women dancing in groups, so that they can be visible without being too vulnerable.
If you don’t like alcohol but can act disinhibited anyway, does that work too? (Also there’s the issue of whether your partner is too intoxicated to give consent...)
I am not the right person to ask about what works well in clubs, as I wouldn’t say my experiences at clubs were particularly successful or enjoyable, but I very much doubt anyone would kick you out of a club for not drinking or anything like that, so give it a shot and see how it goes? You get to decide what “works” for you, in this situation, and if you had a good time that’s a success.
As for the issue of consent while very intoxicated, yes that is an issue.
I got in a few dance battles in clubs while sober, was pretty fun. Had my first crowdsurf while sober in a club too.
The fun sober club experience very much depends on good music, being in the mood, being with friends who are very fun and you trust very deeply, etc, imo. oh, and being the kind of person who really likes music, dancing, kinda enjoys doing dumb shit, etc