An introvert⦠clubbing solo. Something about that sentence almost seems paradoxical. I was traveling solo in Warsaw, Poland when I decided one Friday night that I wanted to go out and meet new people.
The decision was not whether or not to go with someone else, but whether or not to go out at all, to begin with. It would have been so easy for me to back down and stay home. If I was going to go out that night, I was going out alone. That much was certain. I considered all of my options that night. I could have stayed home to watch a movie on Netflix; I was already hooked on a series that I would have gladly binge-watched. There were plenty of ways for me to avoid putting myself out there in such an uncomfortable position.
Nightclubs and bars are challenging territories for a lot of introverts. Nearly every aspect of the environment puts us outside of our ideal comfort zone. It just requires a little bit more effort to get us there and into the right mindset to enjoy it. The thought of finding myself in such a social environment without any friends to fall back on made me extremely anxious.
I was starting to really freak myself out by thinking about it. I have a tendency to over-analyze situations. I had to tell myself to cut it out. I was trying to meet new people. That was the point. Fear of the unknown could have easily stopped me from leaving my home in Warsaw that night. Since I knew I was going to be entering the club alone, a tip that I found helpful while building up the courage to go solo was choosing to go to a place I was already familiar with. Jorge and I had found an amazing gay club in Warsaw the prior weekend when he was visiting.
In my experience, I found that already knowing what the inside would look like prior to going brought with it added comfort to what was otherwise a very unsettling situation. Going felt less intimidating because I could already imagine what the inside would look like once I entered. The fun, lively, and accepting environment that I experienced at this club in the past gave me an extra boost of confidence that I could trust the specific club to liven up as the night progressed.
