A Normal Saturday Night

I think your first attempt was right on the spot. You can write if you want to, it just takes some practice.

I want to tell you about my life, although I also don't want to tell you. Because one or maybe the only advantage of being alone in a big city like Berlin is that you can do whatever you want, including stupid shit. And the anonymity of it makes all embarrassment easy to carry. But I had such a funny and weird night last Saturday that I want to write about it.

It started out quite normal, I had a date with Koen in the Weserstrasse in a bar with Belgian beers. When Koen picks a place, it's almost always a place without any women in it. But I was happy with the beers and we stayed there for three drinks. Then we moved to a hip place I knew existed, also in the Weserstrasse, but where I'd never been before. It was a sort of cocktailbar with a lot of beautiful people and great music from a record player (they played the album of Chinawoman and one of Timber Timbre). It was not too fancy, not too hip, it was quite cool. First we sat at the bar because it was the only free spot, and next to us were two young, not very attractive girls. Because Koen always wants to talk about or to girls (in case of sufficient drunkenness) we of course were checking them out. But then some guy came to steal their attention, and in the end we were even asked to move away to another spot at the bar so this guy and his friend could hit on the girls. Then we saw two other girls on the other side of the bar, which was L-shaped. They were much more beautiful but by the time I proposed we go talk to them, they were leaving. We also left, and Koen made the strange proposal to follow them. Which I didn't want to do, but since they were going into the next bar some 50 meters further I agreed to go there as well. They stayed for only a minute, just to say hi to the bartender whom they knew, and then me and Koen sat there a bit like idiots. But I didn't care. We went to one more bar after that and then said goodbye.

Cycling home, it was around 2am, I passed this piece of forest called Königsheide between Baumschulenweg and Johannistal, where the crematorium is. I'd jogged there once and found it creepy even during the day. I heard loud music like from a club coming from inside the forest, and against my instinct I turned back and headed straight into the dark woods. I quickly lost the path and couldn't see a thing, but the sound was my guide and in the end I found this illegal party where only a handful of people were dancing. I was immediately welcomed by a guy who turned out to be French and very nice. I also talked to a British girl who said she worked in the erotica literature business. It was all very strange but I felt happy because these things don't happen in other cities, and we were like on another planet - nobody could hear us and the lights on the trees made it all very special. After some dancing I left and almost got lost and died but in the end found the road again.

Then I was in a confident mood and ready for a new challenge. So when I was almost home I saw the neon lights of the Viva Bar (you know the one with 'betreutes Trinken') and my curiosity won it from my shyness and fear, so I went in. In the first room there is a loungy kind of bar, and I ordered a beer from a (dressed) blond girl. I looked around a bit, insecure, and saw that in a sort of salon corner there was one girl in underwear, some guys and some dressed girls. They invited me over. After that another guy came in, a muscular kind of type, who was actually very nice and also for the first time there (but his comfortable behaviour betrayed that it was not the first brothel he visited). So there I sat, not saying much, but feeling quite all right. Only the hooker was very annoying, she was dumb as hell but had a big mouth and demanded champagne from the men. Luckily my new friend was not to be treated like an idiot, and in the end we compromised and everyone put 20 euros on the table for the girls' drinks. The beers - I had two in the end - were actually normally priced. I stayed there for probably an hour or so, and then I went home. I never had any desire to go to one of the 'back rooms', it's kind of weird because you actually have to 'negotiate' with a hooker in front of everyone else. And also the only girl still 'working' was this bitch I hated from the start and who was very unattractive to me. But in the end I was glad I'd gone in, it was a funny experience.

So, you see, I'm doing just fine without you. Except that I'm not, as you also saw many times already.