Murder on the dance floor

A day in the life of a single girl.

I dragged myself out of bed on Saturday morning to prepare for Oktoberfest at the Royal Exhibition building, Carlton. The words Oktoberfest and classy don’t go together at all but I thought the venue may mean a less rambunctious affair (such as St Kilda gardens or Birrarung Marr park where a friend climbed up a speaker pole to see the DJ better and ended up in hospital!). 

Usually Oktoberfest in Melbourne means a lot of girls in short skirts and very low, voluptuous tops and unfortunately we all look the same (thanks eBay). Last year, I spotted at least 20 girls wearing the same outfit as I was. So whilst the beer is flowing, the boys are a plenty, so are the girls and the chances of standing out are slim to none in his environment. It’s just a great day to hang out with friends and have a laugh.

The Royal Exhibitian building was set up like a huge beer hall with trestle tables packed with laughing friends and piled high with the remnants of all the drinks of the day. For this occasion, you had to choose the day function (12-5pm) or the night function (6-11pm) and I found myself at the day session. By 3pm, everyone was very loose!

Girls were dared to try to jump up on wooden crates that were piled higher than their legs whilst the men stood by watching and cheering on. The band was playing covers and anytime an Aussie classic came on, people stood up on the tables and bench seats, screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

You’re the voice, try and understand it. Make a noise and make it clear. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa (John Farnham)

Of course, the bench seats broke! They were carried out by security (the benches not the drunk people) to hundreds of people clapping and cheering.

By 4pm, most people were on the dance floor. “Grown ups” that had spent their hard earned money, carefully trying to throw basketballs and shoot ducks to win soft toys, then carried them onto the dance floor. How cute.

The soft toys were then held up high above their heads where they proceeded to rip their guts out! I looked over at one point and thought someone was blowing bubbles to dance under, then I realised it looked like polystyrene balls and I made the connection.

When one saw it, then the others started doing it. No stuffed animal was safe unless you were clinging to it, off the dance floor. I probably should have been laughing. As a primary teacher, I just thought of the waste! And as a drunk person, I was picking up soft toy body parts and holding an abondoned leg up here and there asking boys…

Is this your leg? Did you lose a leg? Do you think this (soaking wet) foot is lucky?

The boys reached out their hands to twirl me around. Not one twirl, repetitive twirls. Not one boy, three boys were trying to twirl me. Why would I want to be twirled whilst drinking beer? But okay, I’ll give this a go and try and make conversation. What a waste of time.

One boy that was prepared to make conversation was also very handsy but he seemed nice enough. Every time I thought ‘he might be fun’ in a non creepy way (again, compared to others. For example, one guy was walking around with a small sign that said ‘will you have sex with me?’) he then put the same moves on my best friend. So he kept going back and forth with my taken friend trying to re-direct him back to me. We made plans for an after party but ended up walking out together when it was over. I had asked him if he wanted to put my phone number in his phone but thought he mustn’t have heard me. He stayed with me for while and I thought he had made his choice when he went back over to my friend. Together, we had to spell it out to him.

“You can’t have both of us. You have to choose one girl and stick with her and make her feel special. (To which he groaned ‘Noooooo.’)

We are not both going to be with you.”

He finally got the message so left to wait for a tram home with his friend! When the tram still hadn’t arrived and we were waiting at the lights he said to me “You can have me til the tram arrives.”

Oh my goodness.

I’m glad I didn’t think I was going to find my dream man at this event. Back to online dating it is! It appears that guys think they can have multiple women in real life too though.