A new Start-Up decided to celebrate its success in a fancy party, and on my first night in San Francisco I got an invite and decided to play dress-up. Read on.

Dress up time!

It’s probably been more than two years since I put on high heels and a pretty dress and tried to play normal. The dress, bought on a shopping spree with my sister was a great success, as for the normal I’ll leave it to you to judge.

It’s also been a long time since I was close to the start-up world, but after around the third or fourth conversation I got the point and remembered why I hated that world. No one was there to have fun, they were all selling something; their start-up, a friends’ start-up, office space for start-ups, you name it. Except for a few unlucky friends of friends that got sucked in by the promise of free alcohol and hors-d’oeuvres.

I tried getting some people to dance but it didn’t work. The music was pretty shitty but I spent some time on the dance floor, twirling alone, looking around, at all the masks, all the people who cared too much about how they presented themselves to actually make a connection or have fun. The real rich ones were mostly older investors; there was this slight distance around them. The entrepreneurs would sometimes ‘disrespect’ the venue and came with flip-flops and short. ‘We don’t play this game’ their game face was saying.

Empty dance floor

There were a lot of women, I’d guess around half were from the actual industry and not just girlfriends. There was a really annoying affect that I noticed. If I was talking to a guy or in a group anyone who wanted to join the conversation would make eye contact, smile, and wait to be invited. But if I was talking to another women they would just barge in and introduce themselves, positioning themselves at the top of the social hierarchy.

Free booz = drunk men = me almost punching some of them

It was only in the after party in another club that things reverted to usual, business hours were over and sexual frustrated was in. I can’t even remember how many guys hit on me each in an idiotic and more annoying way then the other. I practiced being assertive and not my violent crazy self. “If you respect me you will respect my space and take your hand off my knee,” I told an Indian man who apologized and excused his behavior as culture differences. “I’ve been to India, so don’t bullshit me,” I said with a death stare.

Most men ended up going to a strip club, probably woke up with a killer hangover the next day, ubered to work and sat in front of the computer all day feeling empty inside. It’s a sad world out there folks, filled with silicon smiles and bubble dreams just waiting to burst.