My Experience at Drama Park Lane

New Year's Eve has never been my favorite holiday, and that should come as no surprise. It's really just a holiday dedicated to forgetting itself and the promises we tell ourselves, in our own desperation to break old habits. And yet, each year, as the months go by and our integrity slips away once again, it becomes almost ritualistic to make another promise we won't keep. We may intend on keeping it, but we seldom do.

That's why I intended on celebrating New Year's Eve in London amongst complete strangers at a club I'd never even heard of til December 31st, 2018. When I saw there was an expensive but promising (no pun intended) offer for a good night out, I didn't hesitate to book the ticket. It kept me out of my father's hair and allowed me to make new friends. I've always been good at meeting new people.

It was in the line of the nightclub, Drama Park Lane that I studied those ahead of me, searching for that one familiar face I knew all too well, a promoter. In my search for one, I found myself at a loss. I instead settled for the second alternative, compliment a girl's shoes and see how far that gets me. Much to my delight, it got me to her table. But to my surprise, this also had inadvertently gotten me invited to a threesome I was unaware of between the girl and her boyfriend.

Once the champagne began to wear off, this girl actually squared up to fight me. That is, until her boyfriend pulled her away and told me to 'fuck off', which I gladly did. This was not the first London girl to antagonize me into a fight and it certainly wouldn't be the last. It's just the custom of the bar talk.

So I sauntered off to another section of the club, where I stood, in the middle of the room, mouth gaping open, watching the dancers perform above my head. They were barely clothed and writhing on each other rhythmically. There were bursts of champagne bottles opening and confetti. I remember seeing quick flashes of light, and a group of girls next to me. They looked like a lot of fun but also like the kind who had an idea of what to do next. I couldn't very well stay at this club all night, not with another girl ready to claw my eyes out just steps away from us. The girls invited me back to their place, where I was promised many party favors and fun.

There was no disappointment as I disappeared into a taxi with half of the girls. I remember one girl, had a black fur coat on, and smoked cigarettes with the same frequency of a young person using the word, "like". We left Mayfair and ended up at her place in Kensington, where I discovered her love for travel and being a Sagittarius. This was one of the first times I felt I could ever be attracted to another female. She had an ease to her and a quick ability to find the fun in any situation, effortlessly.

At the apartment there was a large wall of all kinds of alcohols, some I'd never even heard of, from the one side of the wall to the other, tightly placed next to one another. There must have been over a hundred bottles on that wall because it covered the wall from head to toe. I was told to grab "one of the bottles on the shelf, whichever one you like". And this is where the night began.

Karaoke ensued, endless talks about how being young meant having fun, and we were all going to have as much fun as humanly possible. I grabbed the fur coat I liked so much, and cuddled up in it, half dozing off, half wired awake. There was too much going on for me to just sleep. Plus, there was of course the safety aspect to it. I couldn't very well leave that up to chance.

Most of us remained friends to this day, while some probably didn't even remember my existence in the morning. See, that's the thing about New Year's... you have to go in expecting to make it on the other end without a clue as to what happened. It's a point A to point C with no recollection of B situation. And we're okay with that.