Don’t Cry Over Spilled Beer

The Girl’s Night Out Gone Wrong

In the immortal words of Dane Cook, there are some nights when we gals “just wanna dance.”

Sometimes on these nights, we may also want to meet men, shun men, catch up on one another’s lives, hear the latest gossip, have a full-out venting session, or give some face time to the hot new shoes we purchased—on sale, no less—last week.

All pay homage to the “girl’s night out,” where trips to the bathroom are a group activity and incredibly loud, high-pitched, and completely unnecessary squeals and shrieks are allowed and even encouraged throughout the course of the evening.

Of course, with so many places to go in Manhattan on any given night, it’s easy to become jaded on a girl’s night out, angered over poor service at a restaurant or aggravated by the five dollar cover charge you could swear wasn’t in place last weekend.

So for all of those girls who have been frustrated by a girl’s night out gone wrong, I think that it’s time we take a deep breath [insert breath here] and remind ourselves why we’ve remained loyal followers of this nocturnal occasion for so many years.

#1 The Girl’s Night Out Is Strictly For The Girls
Several months ago, one of my friends and I went out to a bar one night with no real intention of meeting any guys. We just wanted to catch up, grab a few beers and yes, if the music called for it, dance. But instead of leaving us to our secluded conversation, a few guys came over and attempted to dance with us. My friend and I declined simply by saying that it was a "girl’s night out." And suddenly, just like that, those three magical words became the euphemistic replacement for the three words that we really meant and didn’t feel like actually saying at the moment, that is, “I’m not interested.” (Unfortunately, we did have to translate for one or two.)

#2 The Girl’s Night Out Is A Great Time To Meet Guys
On the flip side of things, if you’re out with the girls and there is a guy that interests you, it’s okay to pull away from the larger group to speak with him. What better time to meet a guy than with an army of wing women ready to back you up? The beauty of a girl's night out is that it is endlessly versatile—depending on your intentions for the evening. And, of course, guys can never hold it against a girl if her intentions seem to change from one prospect to the next. (After all, it is called a girl’s night out for a reason. We call the shots—and drink them too.)

#3 Who Needs A Therapist When You Have This?
With drama therapy, art therapy and music therapy carving out significant spaces for themselves in the world of feeling good, why haven’t we ever formally recognized the implicitly therapeutic feel of a girl’s night out. G-NO therapy (read “g-no” not “gyno”) runs rampant all over Manhattan, and while there’s nothing so liberating as shamelessly unloading all of our weekly baggage onto our best girlfriends, it seems as though we have never given credit where credit is due. There’s no shame in therapy, especially this kind—G-NO therapy is the cheapest form of therapy in all of Manhattan.

The truth is, that in spite of those girl’s nights out gone wrong, for many of us, it’s difficult to live without them for too long without really missing them.

So the next time you embark on a girl’s night out, disregard the inebriated tiara-wearing bachelorette who spills her beer on your new shoes, the waiter who insists that you’re wrong, that the salad does not come with your dinner, or the creepy middle-aged man who “just happens” to keep placing himself near you at the bar.

All in all, it’s a small price to pay for an outing with so much potential. And at the end of evening, don’t girls just wanna have fun?

Of course they do.

And in Manhattan, we girls know how to do it best.