So, in my fortnight of fun following dissertation hand in day (which we have humourously decided to call Gradders), my friends and I had a night out in London, as a lot of our group live there. Our aim was to head to Mahiki and have a great time. Dressed to the nines we had a glorious barbecue/ pre-drinks before heading out into town, and as we got to Mahiki I found an old socialite friend who helped us score a cheeky queue jump and guest list.
So far this night sounds good, right? Well, after we moved to the guest list queue, the bouncers decided to be little shits. They questioned my housemate’s ID and told her that she wasn’t using her own ID, regardless of the fact that she had three other forms of ID proving that it was indeed, her. So her boyfriend simply said to the bouncer “please mate, it’s her ID”, to which the bouncer went mad. He told the boyfriend to get out of the queue while my housemate continued to beg to come in. Then, the next guy in our group held out his ID for the bouncer and for no reason he snapped, saying “right you’re giving me attitude, all of you get out.” It was crazy! We had done nothing wrong, yet a bouncer with a vendetta can decide we aren’t good enough to go in whenever he likes. He made my housemate sign the signature on her ID, which she received 5 years ago when she was 16 and had understandably forgotten. How is that fair?
I understand that doormen such as this one must see a lot of insincere people and have to make a fast decision about letting them in or not, but we all just stood there shell shocked, not knowing what just happened. As 21 and 22 year olds, being rejected from a queue has not happened in a very long time, and this bouncer was being absolutely ridiculous.
Before leaving home, my socialite friend asked me if we were an attractive group of people. She also told us we all had to wear heels otherwise we would not even be considered for entry. I resent this rule because I am 5”10 and very rarely wear heels because that means I breach the 6 ft barrier and makes me stick out. Furthermore, the fact that she said they would be funny if we weren’t attractive really makes me question society’s conception of the elite, as well as London life in general. It appears that in order to survive in London you need to be beautiful, know lots of other London socialites, and do very little else. But I don’t know why this bouncer decided to penalise my friends, because they are all very attractive; my housemate in particular. Luckily, socialite pal hooked us up with another club which led to a pretty fun night nonetheless, but this introduction to London life was not as pleasing as I had previously imagined.
I understand that doormen need to be aware of the sneaky youths trying to be old before their time, but each person is different and not letting my housemate in should have been handled differently because we had done nothing wrong and it meant we had to completely change our plans for the evening. Plus it upset my housemate.
