In one hour it’ll be midnight and I’ll be the same Virgin Loser pumpkin who arrived at Naughties’ Nightclub three hours earlier all set to get laid.

I told my date to cool it and she took offence. She’s done an Exodus and I’m alone. But not quite. ‘Hola, Frank, having a party?’ It’s Beautiful Babs the principal’s daughter.

She says she’s been watching me for a couple of weeks and she likes what she sees. “You’re not like the other guys, Frank,” she says.

I offer her some cooking sherry from my hip flask. She says she doesn’t feel like drinking tonight.

‘Do you ever feel like it?’ I ask her.

Babs fixes those lovely brown eyes on me and says she feels like doing lots of things. But in her own good time.

She says she gets ripped by the other kids for being a party pooper. ‘And for being the principal’s daughter. For being different. Like you.’

She tells me this and laughs. ‘People are really insecure, they feel better when everyone’s the same,’ she says. ‘But I like who I am. I like being different.’ She takes my hand and pulls me up off the pavement. ‘And I like dancing. With you.’

As Beautiful Babs leads me inside, I don’t tell her I can’t dance like everyone else. I don’t think she’d care. In fact, I think she’d like it. That I dance kind of different.

Image: Steve Vosloo, CC-BY-2.0

WHAT DO YOU THINK? What kinds of things do you do to fit in?