There is much talk these days of how difficult it is to meet someone - romantically speaking - in this, the modern era. Indeed I have done a lot of such shitetalking myself after a few drinks. It is hard (I'm still single) and though theoretically teh internehts makes even dating easy, it hasn't done much for me, I tell you. The 'net may be changing the game elsewhere but online dating still has quite a stigma attached to it in Ireland. The accepted method for acquiring a future life partner here is to (a) meet them through a friend (an excellent option as this can often mean that they come with a recommendation and/or a returns policy) or (b) to take your chances in the last chance saloon of the pub and hope that the complete stranger you've brought home will not look like the Elephant Man/your boss/his sister once you take your beer goggles off. Online dating is (somewhat bizarrely, when you consider the risks associated with option (b) above) thought to be unsafe; dating websites are presumed to be populated by psychopathically lonely losers and blind dates are considered a form of social suicide. So what are modern Irish singletons who have run out of patience with these paltry options to do? Why - return to those hallowed times! When men were men and women wore shoulder-pads. When love was a slow-dance, all left feet and hard-ons. To quote Mr. Calvin Harris, it was acceptable in the eightees.
I was shuffling and shuftying along through the city this morning when I noticed a new horror nested on the corner of Nassau St. and Kildare St. The unattractive sign outside promises pessimistically safe times: No Drugs, No Drunks, No Problems. But for the singleton who's tired of flailing around pathetically to dance tunes, trying in vain to impress the object of their tequila-fulled affections with pop-n-lock(ed) robot dancing, the sign also offers a glimmer of hope. For the club is GR80s (geddit?) and their USP* is their slow sets.
I nearly puked. I cannot imagine anything worse than revisiting the slow set horrors of my teenage years (which were in the 90s, incidentally, but we were a little behind the times. Besides, GR90s just doesn't have the same zing! to it). The way the dancefloor cleared as soon as the first bars of a Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston/Bryan Fucking Adams song kicked in, except for one drunken lunatic who'd been dancing alone and had simply not noticed. The way the floor gradually filled with groping couples, usually comprised of your friends and boys they knew you fancied. The way the drunken lunatic would ricochet off them until he was eventually expelled from the floor, at which point he'd lurch in your direction, go straight for your tits and then try to ask you to dance but be unable to pronounce "want", "to" or "dance". The way your sober, well-meaning and well-mannered but unattractive friend would step in to save you - resulting in an awkward once-around-the-floor where you try to hold him at arms' length to avoid his erection before feigning thirst and/or incontinence and rushing off to the bar and/or bathroom. It took me years of hard work and costly drugs to repair the damage that school discos and nightclub slow sets did to my teenage self-confidence. I suspect that one night in GR80s would see all of my efforts undone. I shall be avoiding that one like the plague.
*Unique Selling Point - apparently it's a dating thing?
I was shuffling and shuftying along through the city this morning when I noticed a new horror nested on the corner of Nassau St. and Kildare St. The unattractive sign outside promises pessimistically safe times: No Drugs, No Drunks, No Problems. But for the singleton who's tired of flailing around pathetically to dance tunes, trying in vain to impress the object of their tequila-fulled affections with pop-n-lock(ed) robot dancing, the sign also offers a glimmer of hope. For the club is GR80s (geddit?) and their USP* is their slow sets.
I nearly puked. I cannot imagine anything worse than revisiting the slow set horrors of my teenage years (which were in the 90s, incidentally, but we were a little behind the times. Besides, GR90s just doesn't have the same zing! to it). The way the dancefloor cleared as soon as the first bars of a Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston/Bryan Fucking Adams song kicked in, except for one drunken lunatic who'd been dancing alone and had simply not noticed. The way the floor gradually filled with groping couples, usually comprised of your friends and boys they knew you fancied. The way the drunken lunatic would ricochet off them until he was eventually expelled from the floor, at which point he'd lurch in your direction, go straight for your tits and then try to ask you to dance but be unable to pronounce "want", "to" or "dance". The way your sober, well-meaning and well-mannered but unattractive friend would step in to save you - resulting in an awkward once-around-the-floor where you try to hold him at arms' length to avoid his erection before feigning thirst and/or incontinence and rushing off to the bar and/or bathroom. It took me years of hard work and costly drugs to repair the damage that school discos and nightclub slow sets did to my teenage self-confidence. I suspect that one night in GR80s would see all of my efforts undone. I shall be avoiding that one like the plague.
*Unique Selling Point - apparently it's a dating thing?
