A night on the town

Now, before I launch in, let me make it clear that I love my housemates dearly. Over the years, I've had a mixed bag when it comes to living companions, so I know I'm lucky. But there's something amiss when we head out for a night on the town, and it's something I've found with previous housemates as well.

Last night, we wandered down to Clapham's bars after playing CSI:Miami drinking games. Gotta love Horatio and his sunglasses of justice. We went into one of the bars, which was blasting what I call dancey elevator music. i.e it's just non-descript beats and electronic noises. I'm not like a music snob or anything, sometimes I like dance music when it's house vocally type stuff, but the music last night did not impress. But here's what really pissed me off - they were playing it at a volume only appropriate in a club, and if you were dancing to it. We could only communicate by shouting at each other, and there was no way of striking up a conversation with the people (ok, men) next to you without acquiring a loudhailer. In circumstances like this, it can seem like a lot of effort to chat to the person next to you, who you see every day and only moments ago could discuss crime scene issues with so easily. So...and this is what really bugs me, we ended up, as we have so many times before, holding drinks, jutting our heads idly to the beats and looking around, looking every inch like bored girls out only to find men. I'm not even denying there might be an element of truth in that. Last nights main objective was CSI:Miami fun, then dancing our hearts out, but I'd say that none of us would have objected if Mr Right, or even Mr Right Now, walked into our respective lives that evening. But there's just something so...unseemly about standing there, with faces like smacked arses, waiting for someone to come and entertain us.

I tried to strike up a conversation, to give the impression we were having fun (after all, there's nothing more attractive than someone who looks like they're having a good time, natch), but to no avail. And I think this is essentially my problem sometimes, when out with housemates. If you're going to go somewhere so packed and loud that you can only talk to each other, and if you can only do that by means of projecting fully from the diaphragm into their ear, what's the point? What's the point when you could just hang out in the flat, talking at normal volume, playing bad 80's rock and eating creme eggs? Don't get me wrong, I love going out with groups of friends that I don't live with, chatting and catching up, drinking and dancing the night away. But when my flatmates and I go out, we always struggle. We get on like a house on fire in all other circumstances, they make me laugh like a drain. But when we're out? not so much. The only real exceptions are when friends join us, or we go to a houseparty, or we're in a bar playing music slightly below Ministry of Sound levels and we get the chat going with groups (read: groups of men) nearby. Then, we're witty, we spark off one another and I don't doubt that we're very entertaining (and modest with it ;).

I'm not sure what the answer is here. I can't very well go round asking bars to turn the music down, though actually my Gran would so maybe I should take a leaf out of her book. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm hungry, and the best thing to eat after the night before is a fried egg sandwich. See you in the kitchen.