i don’t understand something, and it bothers me more and more every time i think about it. maybe someone can explain this or help me figure out how to work around it.
i am a young single male who likes to go to concerts at local small venues. theoretically, when i go to a show at a place like the troubadour or the fonda or anything else (like the mates of state show last saturday), i am surrounded by the exact kind of people i would like to be friends with — or meet and charm and date and seduce and all that. they obviously have similar tastes by the mere fact of being present, are often dressed in the style i’m most attracted to, and most importantly, i know they like doing what i like doing because they’re already doing it right next to me. this should be the ideal way to meet new people.
instead, i stand huddled between all these strangers who seem intent on pretending not to make eye contact, not to be listening to each other’s conversations, and most importantly not to want to talk to anyone but the friends they’ve formed protective little bubbles in the crowd next to already. i think it’s the only time i could possibly be standing rubbing elbows with someone for two hours without having to say a word to them, and with it seemingly acceptable to both parties. the show ends, everyone flees the room like it’s about to be fumigated, and i go home, alone.
then on other nights, there is no show, so i go to a pub for a few beers and hoping to maybe engage some new people. i sit with my buddies and scan the crowd, and see several desparate unattractive people trying too hard to get attention, and a handful of overly made-up people that are good-looking, already getting more attention than they ever seem to want. so i tell myself no, no one here strikes me in any way, so why bother the awkwardness of trying to force a conversation with someone i very apparently have nothing in common with. not surprisingly i still go home, alone.
so how can there be no better way to overlap the two situations: one where i’m supposed to try to meet new kids, but am surrounded by the wrong crowd, and one where i’m in just the right crowd, and no one wants to be met? i will assume my fair share of guilt on perpetuating this; i’m not specifically outgoing in these crowds either. but whenever i honestly go out on a limb and try to involve someone nearby in a conversation, i more often than not get an affected acknowledgement that says, ‘i’m going to pretend i didn’t quite here what you said, but at least nod politely and turn away’, or the occasional questioning glance that tells me i must have accidentally spoken in one of the alien tongues i’ve been practicing, because this person certainly can’t seem to understand how or why i would be talking directly to them.
i can even understand why people leave as soon as the encore ends. it feels final. who would want to stand around a room from which all the energy has purposefully just been used up? as much as i’d like to mingle with the crowd afterward, i’m basically with them in this urge to exit the room just like the artists exit the stage — on a high note right at the end of the show.
one solution would be more time between sets, which admittedly gets old, but this is probably exactly because there’s nothing to do in those intervals if no one wants to talk to you, so you’d rather they got on with it. maybe it’d be fine if there were some air of socialization instead of just anticipation for the next act. but then you’re taking the emphasis off the artists and into the crowd, which maybe isn’t the right idea either. i’m perhaps equally annoyed with people that go to shows and don’t seem to even care at all about the fact that there are bands pouring their hearts into playing music for them.
a smaller step would be at least not to play deafening filler music between sets, which some places are guilty of, and which drives me insane. i’m willing to submit to ear damage and having to suspend all conversation to see a band i like do what they do, but please don’t cause me auditory pain from a recorded track, as well as making even the least involved conversation a matter of shouting into someone’s ear. that’s just unneccessary. but, the clubs that don’t make this mistake still never leave any real social time in the mix, and like i said before, maybe they shouldn’t. the show is and should be about the bands. it’s not a play date.
which is why i have a better solution. if the clubs themselves don’t seem to want to do this, i’ll just have to sweep in and start my own business. a bar/cafe either above, next to, or across the street from all the venues i frequent, where it is essentially established tradition to migrate from the show to the bar afterward. i don’t see why clubs don’t do this already, if they could potentially capture another few hours’ worth of drinks sold after the usual 11:30-midnight closing number, at a time where people are more likely to get drinks to pass the time anyway without a stage show to distract them. they work around the fans’ need to end the concert experience by leaving the venue room, but capitalize on their desire to stretch the night out, because i refuse to believe that all these 20-somethings go right home afterward at only 12am. this way they could all just do it in one place and only increase business for the club, right? and of course people like me would reap the endless benefits.
my dissatisfaction doesn’t all just stem from wanting to meet girls either, i swear. it just feels like this potentially rich array of like-minded people is wasted because everyone’s afraid to talk to each other. so i’m hoping you don’t mind if i bump into you at the next show and try to say something, heaven forbid. but if you do, the beauty part is that you can ignore me completely and it won’t even seem out of the ordinary.
