clubbing

Germaine Greer describes herself as unclubbable; someone not acceptable as a person with whom one can enjoy good fellowship; socially unappealing, according to those dictionaries that contain this unlikely word. The American literary critic Harold Bloom was labelled unclubbable; of himself he said, "I am a department of one". 

Groucho Marx said he wouldn’t want to be part of any club that would have him as a member.

I own to being unclubbable and blame Hitler and Lord Baden Powell. As a young nerd I delved into Alan Bullock’s seminal biography of der Führer. The mass hysteria of das Volk determined me to resist any movement or opinion held by any three or more people. I’m happily used to my asocial status.

At age 12 I graduated from cubs to scouts. The delight of the scoutmasters in the sexual high jinks involved in initiation practises perpetrated by older boys on younger boys prompted my first resignation from a group. Plenty more followed.

As a young teacher I spent a term as president of our school’s branch of the teachers’ union. But knee-jerk responses for the sake of industrial solidarity soon turned me into a heretic.

A diffident young man’s desire for solidarity inspired other joinings: I smoked a pipe at meetings of a minor political party in my early twenties and tried to look erudite at university film society screenings, but I quickly lost the sense of whatever made me join.

I was better at football clubs. As a teetotal vegetarian the Aussie Rules club should have been no place for me, but footy was my obsession and I was a skilled player and endearingly eccentric enough to win acceptance. Nonetheless, the piss-ups and pie nights went on without me.

Much later I found myself presiding over a staff association and its social activities, initiating and driving a staff book club and a film group. I managed to enjoy the company of a tiny core of diehards for a few years until I left the job.

So at 60 I’m again unclubbed, not interested in good fellowship, a department of one. I usually cycle alone, visit the gym but talk to no one, and regard humanity as an association of dubious repute. The society of dogs is preferable most of the time.

Rock on.