Proving Manhood = Proving Idiocy And Insecurity

Why I Don’t Like Changing Venues…

Our company picked up a new venue, and last night was the first night on it. I was pulled of my normal favourite wine bar for it, but it helped the boss and I didn’t mind really.

The place is generally pretty trendy, and the majority of the girls who attend are absolute stunners yet dress respectably. There were also far more girls than guys in the place – always a good sign that there probably won’t be much trouble.

And there wasn’t – just one fight and a couple of removals. In one, I was wearing my black leather gloves as I’d just come in from the door to assist and I was freezing outside.

Some know-it-all who said he worked as a glassie at a dodgy pub said “The bouncers at my club only wear gloves when they’re going to fuck someone up. This is my brother you’re going to remove, so if you’re going to fuck him up, I’m ready to party”. I communicated that this wasn’t a dodgy pub, I wasn’t going to fuck anyone up and to prove it I took the gloves off. He seemed almost disappointed and revved himself up further with some fighting talk I didn’t bother responding to.

Whilst this was going on his brother, very drunk, was making his way to the ‘back door’ (which really just opens onto the same street as the front door, just a bit further down the road). Glassie was excited that we were ‘taking him out the back’, because to him it proved that we were going to rough his brother up, and thus give him a chance to prove how much of a man he was by valiantly taking us all on. Classic example of confirmation bias – selecting evidence to prove your own view in spite of the big picture and what’s actually going on proving the opposite (to VERY simply state the psychological phenomenon).

We got out the door and Glassie said ‘Right, we’re out the back. Let’s go’. Puzzled, I pointed out we were on the same street as the front door, with regular police patrols going up and down. ‘So now what?’ asked Glassie.

‘That’s it. End of incident. I’m going back on the door’ replied I.

Glassie seemed disheartened. No fighting. No proving of manhood. No winding up the bouncer to provoke him into a fight.

Can’t please everyone I suppose. Would rather go home in one piece than make his day by sinking to his level.

Ah well, back to the wine bar next week. Suits me fine – I get on with the regular patrons and we have no trouble. If there’s any minor issues then management sort it out. It’s strange but the atmosphere there is not conducive to trouble even if troublemakers are in there.

One night we had a young bloke high on speed go crazy in the (small) toilet and kick the hand dryer off its mounting. The boss told him he had to leave. After a few seconds of blank starting, partly due to the drugs, he left without incident. Had it been anywhere else, I’m pretty sure it would have kicked off.

Might have been how the boss spoke to him or the very convivial atmosphere of the place, but one gets the impression that trying to prove manhood in a place like the wine bar would not garner any support or encouragement from the patronage to fuel the behaviour.

And rightly so.