Skip to content

Home Truths about Clubbing: a female perspective

We all love a good night out! What’s better than having a boogie with your best mates in your favourite club? Whether you’re out celebrating or just blowing off some stress you’re there to have a good time. Sadly, for girls, a night out doesn’t always feel that simple.

Here’s 5 stresses that cross my mind on a night out;

Drinking

Chances are the night starts off with pres, here you try and drink enough to keep you buzzed for the club but not too much you’re a wreck. It’s a fine line to balance and sure enough you’ll have miss judged it in the past. You worry about getting to the club and being too drunk to be let in. How do you get home, all your mates have gone in already. Or you worry the opposite – you’re not drunk enough which means buying drinks inside. Buying drinks at the club is less attractive than drinking at pres because money! Drinks out are expensive, you could find yourself dipping into that emergency taxi money. Then the same question – how do you get home? Deciding how much to drink is a night-defining question. It’s a learning curve but not one that many lads ever seem to stress over, hey, they can always walk home!?

Going out with a group you aren’t 100% familiar with

A night out with your housemates, best friend or boyfriend is a little less stress inducing. At least you know you’re all set to go home together at the end of the night. But what about going out with new people? If you’ve recently joined a society or your mate has bailed chances are you’ll be out with people that all know each other but you aren’t so familiar with. Judging whether they’re the stay out all night type or the in bed by 1am type is the first thing to decipher. Once you find out it doesn’t matter that you’re the in bed by 1am type, if they’re staying till closing so are you. Making sure you have someone to split a taxi with is more important than the time you’re ready to go home. Sometimes this is great. You’ll clatter home at 5am with plenty juicy stories to tell your housemates. Sometimes it’s not so great but these are the compromises you have to make to get home in one piece.

Going to the bathroom and losing everyone

A biggie, regardless of who you’re out with. Clubs are big, busy and notoriously hard to navigate through (especially after a few drinks!). With all that drinking comes the inevitable and sometimes frequent dash for the toilets. Your lad mates can’t come with you, they don’t want to wait creepily outside and your friend is too busy getting with a guy to leave. So you go to the bathroom alone, risking the chances of losing everyone. No amount of “stay right here I’ll be five minutes” ever really works out. Lads really underestimate how long the queues in the girls toilets can get. They get bored of waiting and move on. In their minds that’s okay you’re bound to bump into each other in the next hour or so…but from the female perspective that’s not ideal. You worry about all the trouble that could come your way in an hour and of course, the inevitable question – how do I get home?

Creepy guys in the club

So you’ve lost your mates, while trying to find them you feel someone touch your waist. Relieved you think they’ve found you, but no it’s some stranger trying to get you to dance. Of course you decline but they don’t take the hint. Here we are big stress number 4 – dealing with creepy guys in the club. It’s bad enough when you’re with people you know but at least you can claim one of your lad mates is your boyfriend. There’s almost no escape when it’s just you. The next 10 minutes consist of stress planning escape routes. Toilets? Takes you back to square one. If he’s extra creepy he might even wait outside for you. Maybe find a friendly looking girl, see if she’ll take you under her wing? Or make a dash for it, try find your mates? Whatever you decide to do it’s better than being groped by a stranger. Ask any girl if they’ve had to deal with this on a night out- I can almost guarantee they’ll answer yes. Ask a guy..?

How do I get home?

Possibly the biggest and most frequent stress of a night out. Lads are often happy to walk home but this isn’t really an option for girls, even in a group. The whole time you’re out you’re already planning on how to get home. In an ideal situation you and your mates can hop into a taxi and split the fare. But if your on your own this is daunting. Do you have enough money, is the taxi safe? Do you have enough battery on your phone to keep contact or track the route? There’s a lot to consider, a lot to worry about. It would be nice to walk home sometimes but you can’t.

Don’t get me wrong I love a night out with my mates but the baggage that comes with being female is a stress I would love to do without. Lads do have it easy. Yeah they might moan about girls getting served first at a bar, having to queue longer and be patted down before entry but I’d gladly swap those inconveniences to be able to go out stress free.

Unfortunately this isn’t changing anytime soon. If girls keep looking out for each other and lads were more aware of what it’s like to go clubbing from a female perspective we could all have better nights out.