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You have your Armani Exchange oxford pressed and ready to go. There's a seven-layer bean dip of Axe hair products in your mane. You've just chugged a 50/50 mix of 5-hour Energy and liquid GHB. You, sir, are ready to go clubbin'. But before you follow your dubstep beating heart to the local bass spot, take another look in the mirror. Are you rolling with 11 other dudes? Did you pop one too many mollies during the pregame session? Is your spray tan running onto your white collar? If so, you might want to consider staying in and doing, like, a fantasy football draft or something. Why? Because everyone at the club will hate you. Yes, everyone.
Written by Sean Evans (@seanseaevans)
You're looking for an excuse to fight.
There are times when fighting in the club is necessary. If Drake sends sends your girl an Acqua Di Gio soaked bottle of Moet, then it's time to put Jimmy Brooks back into a wheel chair. But if you're indiscriminately walking through a crowded dance floor looking for shoulders to bump, do everyone a favor and overdose on ecstasy. The club's an especially pathetic place to throw down anyway because your fisticuffs soundtrack will be a dubstep remix of Justin Bieber's "As Long As You Love Me." Also, everyone's a trained MMA fighter now and even pussies do CrossFit, so the chances of you getting thrown into a suffocating guillotine hold have never been higher. Keep your hands at your side, bruh. You've been warned.
There's vomit in your hair.
When you start acting like a personified version of Rihanna's Instagram feed, it's time to slow things down. We're all about that life, but there's a thin line between being a fun drunk and acting like Paula Abdul after a Bacardi 151 enima. How do you know if you've gone too far? Simple: if you find yourself sending "I miss u" texts and sobbing uncontrollably in a bathroom stall, get outta here. If you're rapping alongside the lyrics to "Thrift Shop" and spazzing frantically on the dance floor, get outta here now. If you start borrowing vocabulary from Paula Deen's deposition while accosting the club's security personnel (we're looking at you, Indiana), get totally the fuck outta here. Some people deserve to be thrown out of the club, but you deserve to land on your head.
On the dance floor, all eyes are on you.
You can buy all the lemon drops and sparkler adorned bottles of Grey Goose you want, but nothing draws the ladies' attention quite like a perfect Dougie. Just kidding, that will get you clowned out of every place that's not a frat house basement. But seriously, if you can dance, you can steal girlfriends and that will likely end with a Ron Artest elbow to the cranium. Killing it on the dance floor is the best/worst thing you can do at the club. On one hand, you're sure to get twerk-ed on by a sweetie wearing spiked stilettos. On the other hand, that girl might be engaged to the leader of a motorcycle gang with a violent criminal history. Crank that with caution.
You have one dance move: humping.
This guy is an absolute nuisance. He starts out 12 feet away from a pack of girls dancing in a circle, and cuts the distance in half every 30 seconds. By the end of a Tiesto Remix, he's a Planck length off his victim's backside and thrusting his hips wildly. It doesn't matter how many vodka tonics get thrown on his Tommy Bahama camp shirt, either—because dude is absolutely relentless. Ladies, Complex City Guide would like to apologize on behalf of men everywhere.
An earpiece is part of your work uniform.
Entering a club is an insufferable two-way street and the patrons are just as guilty as the doormen. Patrons, don't berate bouncers for denying you entry. It's their job to maintain the club's aristocratic air, so they're not going to let a bunch of clowns dressed like Mac Miller into the building. You're out for a night on the town, not shopping for dog food at Wal-Mart. Maybe buy a blazer or something.
Doormen, let's ease up on the class divide. Nightclubs are just incubators for HPV, with fire exits and bathroom attendants. Let's consider an exception to the "collar policy" for a polite gentleman wearing stylish sneakers once in a while. An ear piece and a neck roll might give you dominion over who gets into Club Smells Like Aftershave, but the power trip is hardly befitting of an employee who's paid hourly.
Your heart is beating like a Skrillex track.
You know you've had a bad night when you're starring in a video on WorldStar titled "Nekkid Man on Molly Wildin in Club (*Warning* NSFW)." Be careful out there, kiddos. Don't do any of that cool movie shit, like take a pill via a go-go dancer mouth kiss. That's the kind of YOLO action that ends with you scaling the DJ booth butt ass naked before your Taser-ed in the crotch by security. This should be a night to remember, not a night immortalized on the iPhone's of a packed house who are mad at you for ruining the party.
You have the Pitbull cranked up to 11.
If all you're going to do is press a button on your Mac Book, have the decency to cue up a worthwhile playlist. Since all it takes to be a DJ these days is a pirated copy of Ableton Live, the market is saturated with total goofballs. That's not to say there aren't good mix masters out there, but for every Wolfgang Gartner, there are 10,000 spray tanned jerk-offs that lean wayyy to hard on Flo Rida. We'll give you a pass on ONE Will.i.am joint, but don't let us catch you layering Taylor Swift lyrics over a sped up Bruno Mars sample—unless you're trying to turn the dance floor into a parking lot.
You’re wearing a sash and/or tiara.
Ugh, this group. The bachelorette party sounds awesome: a dozen girls faded off of Skinny Girl Mojito and generally running afoul of the club's no-dancing-on-the-bar rule. But what goes up must come down, and nothing falls apart quicker than a group of twenty-something women with Smirnoff Creamsicle coursing through their veins. By midnight this group will doing its best after hours at the Bad Girls Club impression, one giant high heel fight with cracked iPhones and dildo straws flying all over the place. 50% of marriages end in divorce, and it's no wonder with this kind of precursor.
You're light on the pour.
We understand that black lights and Funktion One speakers aren't cheap, but don't short pour the club's browbeaten guests. We've be hassled by the doorman for our glow in the dark soles, guilted by the bathroom attendant for a $5 hand wash, and now we're sipping a vodka tonic that tastes like straight up Schweppes. SMH. You're lucky there's a bar separating us, otherwise we'd squeeze a lime wedge garnish into your eye ball.
Your all-male crew rolls deep.
These guys are like a shitty boy band for club fuckery. You have the one that brawls, the one four that hump unguarded butts on the dance floor, and at least one dude who'll get loaded on cider beer and ask your girl, "What dat mouth do?" *rolls eyes* *punches keyboard in anger* There needs to be a no tolerance approach towards dealing with bros that roll a dozen deep. If you see a pack of TJ Maxx button-ups and square-toed shoes, call in a drone attack.
