32: Saturday Night Out

Tonight, as I walked back to my car after performing in Birmingham, some youth chose to punch me in the face. I was more stunned than hurt - his clumsy pugilism merely vaguely bruised my forehead so I doubt that the cowardly fuck will be troubling the highest echelons of boxing at any point soon.

I have no idea why he decided to attempt to give me a pasting. He walked out of a bar across the road from where I was working, strode up to me, said nothing and lamped me. It did lead to a very awkward moment where he expected me to go down and I just stared at him and said "ouch". He then considered hitting me again, panicked and buggered off. A very odd moment in my life.

This happened just off Broad Street, a place that pretty much resembles my idea of hell on earth. Hundreds of drunken revellers being as pissed as it is possible to be without sleeping on a bench every night, all trying to have loud conversations with people over booming R'n'B music in the vain hope that they can possibly go home and have awkward sex.

This is, of course, a Saturday night out.

I've been working at the same venue for the last couple of nights and I was astonished upon leaving last night just how short girls dresses are. I must stress - I was shocked. Not "pleasantly surprised". Genuinely shocked. Where do they get these dresses from? Hang on.

(Goes to look)

Ah, Lipsy.

Anyway, I should be pleased about this as a heterosexual man. Women wearing less should be a cause for celebration, surely? No. It just reminds me that I'm getting old and that I've got a seven year old daughter who'll probably be out and about doing the same thing in about ten years. Maybe that's why that dude punched me - he must be a parent of a girl and the sight of so much flesh panicked him. Poor little guy.

I've noted that on these Saturday nights out that there are three distinct groups that form pretty much all of the so-called revellers in bars and clubs.

ONE: ALL GIRLS TOGETHER

Masses of girls together, usually wearing as little as possible. At least one will be crying, one will hate all of the others and half will not be wearing their heels by 11pm.

TWO: THE BOYZ

A load of lads hanging out together, spending a lot of time proving they can drink more than the others and staring at the uncovered backsides of the girls that are out and about. From my experience this weekend they seem to all look EXACTLY the same: Very short hair, polo shirt, shit tribal tattoo. Hey, fellers? Just because your polo shirt is from Lyle and Scott it doesn't mean that you've managed to escape your social class.

THREE: COUPLES

Jesus, these are the worst. A group of four or more couples, where all the women are friends (NEVER the men) and the guys are forced to sit next to each other and pretend to like the others. They like to remind you that they're all attached and happy and that they don't NEED to be out on a Saturday night, but they choose to be because if they stayed at home watching television they'd worry that they were missing something. Nope. If you stayed in when you were single you didn't miss anything, you miss even less when you're attached and merely spend a fortune trying to relive your youth which you only see through the rose-tinted spectacles of booze and drugs back in the day.

Of course, I say all of this whilst hiding a guilty secret.

Yes.

I have never enjoyed a Saturday night out.

When I say "never enjoyed" I don't mean that I've been on hundreds of nights out and they've all sucked. I mean that I don't think I've ever had a Saturday night out. Not with dancing and fun and conversation and the sort of epic adventures that drinkers and revellers enjoy. The kind of weekends that prompted Pete Tong to tell us all that they started on Thursday and have idiots text into Radio 1 talking about how they were going to "large it". Cunts.

I digress. My point is that I quit drinking aged 20. Prior to that I'd never liked clubs and bars. I now work in comedy clubs every Saturday night. I still don't drink, have precious little time to socialise and after gigs people seem more scared of me than wanting to hang out.

Anyway, if you're reading this you're probably thinking that you've had loads of great Saturday nights out. I will not deny this. I will merely remain annoyed and jealous about it. Trouble is, I don't think I can fix my aversion to Saturday nights out now. As:

a) I'm likely to be working every Saturday night until the end of time and convincing people that Monday is my Saturday doesn't really work.
b) I'm nearly 33 for fucks sake. That train has sailed.
c) Large groups of people are always suspicious of little me, drinking coke while they get hammered.

And most importantly of all:

d) It seems that I have a face that people like to smack.

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