Sometimes I think clubbing in Manila is just plain bizarre. People take longer to get ready than they actually stay out; they dress up yet just stand around when they get there, perfecting the non-dance; they nurse one drink (que barbaridad — P100 beer?) yet make a big show of wobbling out of there in glorious inebriation. It makes for quite the spectacle.

Yet for all its hypocrisy, there’s still nothing like a night out on the town after a hectic workweek. Especially when you’re in your haunt du jour surrounded by your favorite people and God decides to throw your jaded self a bone.

I was at my friend’s club last Saturday for a birthday, and had to get there at the painfully early hour of 9pm to meet up with Kim, who in turn was meeting his posse for their NBA Fantasy draft (completely ridiculous, these grown men playing make believe. It was like an episode of The Big Bang Theory, only with Phoenix Suns power forwards instead of Klingons. Still hell, though.). A long, long hour and a half later we were finally starting our evening with drinks and some proper people watching, where I got to thinking about some girls’ clichéd ideas of beauty and sexiness.

Backstory: I am a firm believer in the power and accuracy of first impressions, and I actively put the theory to test upon seeing a group of girls do a grind, complete with gold-plated chain belts, come-hither expressions and overblown makeup. In this day of well-informed fashion forwardness (oh yeah, I also believe that everyone’s got their daily fixes on Bloglovin’ by now, and if not, then get to it) and industry hypersaturation, there is NO excuse for mediocrity. NONE. The only thing worse than not trying at all is looking like you tried too hard.

That said, the next 30 seconds seemed to pass by in serious hi-fi slow-mo. The girl on the far left was first to go, her knees buckling upon the sheer weight of her partner in dance crime, toppling to the floor in a mess of limbs. Next came the lady in the middle, tangling herself in her poor friend and finally bringing down the last in the triad, who really was the most unfortunate, as she came topmost on the furpile, her extremities gangling about and her bottom halfway out of her 4-inch skirt. I felt bad for them, but then Schadenfreude got the best of me, and though I tried (unsuccessfully) to conceal the giggles, one of my girlfriends asked who fell in a very well-modulated voice, and I lost it.  What can I say, human nature. In fairness to the party girls, they had the decency to make their exits when they did.

Moral of the story: there is a reason and lesson in everything, even if it’s as simple as picking yourself up after a really humiliating fall.

On that note of righteous redemption, I clumsily segue into last Friday’s Estee Lauder Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign World Pink Art Gallery exhibition. To all the great and wonderful women who have survived the battle against breast cancer and who I had to pleasure of listening to last Friday, I salute you. I wish my grandma, who succumbed to the disease, could see how far we’ve all come in the battle against the Big C. You are an inspiration to us all, and please, please, please keep fighting the good fight. I’ll post a whole other article on the event soon!

I’ll leave you with my pick for age-appropriate sex appeal. We could all stand to take a page out of Miss Tallulah’s book.