We’ve all been there. You’re in a nightclub, highly intoxicated on maybe too many shots and double Vodkas, but the urge to urinate suddenly overwhelms the urge to try and dance to Sean Paul. You decide to brave the crowds and take yourself to the toilets alone, awkwardly manoeuvring yourself between shufflers and body warmers, whilst secretly hoping that you don’t hear a song you love whilst you find yourself mid-wee/mid-balancing your head on the facing wall to keep yourself upright. You finish your business and somehow, in your drunken state, find yourself talking to a stranger. Now, ordinarily the thought of talking to a stranger in a toilet feels a bit pervy, but you’ve had mass amounts of alcohol, and you suddenly feel the friendliest you’ve ever felt, and yes, you would like to have either of the following conversations with the man wearing a slogan T shirt and a novelty belt 10 years too young for his personal wellbeing.
1) The “What’s your name?”: This normally begins with a sometimes-wet-but-hopefully-it’s-just-water-handshake. You’d like to know the persons name for reasons unknown to yourself at the time (and you just know you won’t remember it tomorrow), but when you see them outside in the smoking area in an hours time you WILL shout the name at them and shake their hands again, as if you used to bunk off Year 9 Geography with them.
2) The “Where are you from?”: You know the one! Why not be polite at the sinks and ask your hand-washing companion where they’re from? They’ll tell you an area you’re either familiar or unfamiliar with, so you either have to say something like “Oh yeah, I know where you mean!” if you know it, or “Oh yeah, I know where you mean!” if you don’t. It was just a question mate, I didn’t ask for Google Maps.
3) The “What do you do?”: Once the above conversations have taken place with your new Toilet Best Friend, you may decide you want to take your fleeting-but-ever-so-strong-friendship to higher levels. You’d like to find out what they do with their lives. What do they do for a job? Are they at University? If so, where do they go and what do they study? You’re apparently interested in them to this degree and thus you come away from the conversation feeling positively enriched by what you just learned about the Film and TV course at Lincoln University.
4) The “How drunk are you?”: You’re bound to be loudly slurred at by someone asking how drunk you are at the urinals. You respond with how drunk you feel you are, with varying degrees of loudness. They will then tell you how drunk they personally feel whilst pissing all over their Vans. Clearly, we have a winner.
5) The “You look like my mate!”: You suddenly get accosted by someone shouting this at you…What are you supposed to say to that? Thank you? Agree with them that yes you do look like Pete? “Show him a picture!”…Honestly pal I’ll just take your word for it, I need to get back to my mates and do the dance to Candy. Priorities.
6) The “What happened to the drink deals?”: You get talking with a Mr Drunk McPissed on how the club’s more expensive lately, and reminisce over the glory days of 2012 when the drinks were half the price and you got amazing shot “deals”: “£1 shots or 5 for £5!’…That was never a drinks deal, it was just basic Maths.
7) The “You having a good night?”: “Yeah mate, you?” “Yeah!”
Right…Bye then.
8) The “The DJ’s shit isn’t he?”: You find yourself absolutely thrilled that you’ve bonded with a stranger who’s just as angry as you that the DJ decided to cut out Tinie Tempah’s rap in Earthquake. Also…Gangnam Style in 2014? Stop that.
9) `The “I could murder a kebab”: You find yourself all danced out, having what is hopefully your last wee of the night and bonding with someone over the copious amounts of junk food you’d both love to shove down your neck. All of the grease, please.
10) The Sing song: Somehow, you’ve accidentally found yourself part of a drunken, and quite frankly, brilliant, rendition of Wonderwall with a group of guys you’ve never met before. That won’t stop you though; you’ve waited your whole life to sing this song with a guy that looks a bit like a fat Liam Gallagher. You smash it, shake hands, and disappear into the darkness of the club, on an adventure to reunite with your friends which we all know, isn’t as easy as it should be.
