My friend and I went clubbing on New Year’s Eve — and 20 minutes into 2019, I’d already punched a dude in the gut. And it felt good. Here’s what happened:
The VIP Club Crawl
2018 was not the best year in history, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about 2019. My friend and I bought tickets to a VIP club crawl, and we were ready to party the NYE away. Yet, if it weren’t for how much we love dancing, we would hate clubbing.
Other than dancing with your friends, there are no advantages to clubbing as a woman. Not only do random men think they’re entitled to our bodies, but some of them are trying to grope us or drug us. It’s a sad reality. A reality which we inevitably experienced that night.
For New Year’s Eve, though, we decided that we would have fun together and go dancing. The club crawl included Toronto’s top-rated clubs. Underground Garage, Cube, Fiction, Grace O’Malley’, and Early Mercy were all included.
The problem is: we barely danced, or had fun. In fact, the club crawl itself was a disaster. We were definitely scammed. There were two clubs in which we had fun at, but there were also two clubs which wouldn’t even let us in. They made us wait in the rain for an hour. By then, it was already time to “move on” to the last stop. In all fairness, had we stayed the whole night at one club, I wouldn’t be so bitter towards the turn of the year.
The Last Stop
We got at Early Mercy soaked in the rain at around 11 pm. That was by far the club we danced the most at. It was also where we found ourselves to be the most annoyed at men because from the moment we arrived there, there was this one dude who targeted me until the end of the night, and two men who kept trying to hand my friend sketchy drinks.
We moved around the club many times, and wherever we went, those three men followed us. For better understanding, we were there for 1 hour and 20 minutes before I punched the dude who followed me. During that time, he followed me, touched me and bothered me seven times, despite my clear lack of interest. The two other guys brought my friend sketchy drinks three separate times. They also kept rotating between who was gonna bother her.
We kept trying to brush it off and have fun. At times, we found groups of girls we would dance with, and it was amusing how we all hyped each other up. There were other groups of people we ended up mixing and mingling with, which were fun as well.
The closer we got to the turn of the year, the more often people would leave their dancing spots. Either they went to the bar for more drinks, or out for a smoke, or to the washrooms etc.
The weird men persisted in bringing drinks to my friend. She refused three times, dude. Move on.
As a woman, if you did not witness your drink getting made, chances are that drugs might have slipped into the drink. Especially if whoever hands you the drink is a strange man you don’t know. Countless women get roofied every day, even those who take precautions. Of course, my friend and I were getting very irritated with how persistent those men were.
The Countdown
Shortly after the countdown, I decided to go to the washroom. My friend and I agreed that she would wait for me, but I couldn’t find my friend for a while. That’s when the annoying guy who’d been following me showed up for the seventh time. He grabbed my waist and went for a kiss, even though I was obviously against that.
I punched him right in the stomach.
And it felt GREAT to finally take it all out on an entitled a**hole.
The funny part about it is that he did not see it coming. As if my reaction after his efforts to force himself on me would be to suddenly change my mind and enjoy it. As if my reaction would be anything but wishing for a quick male extinction.
My New Year’s Eve plans fell apart completely. But damn it if punching that dude wasn’t worth it.
