Expectations for a girls' night out

Tonight is girls' night at a local club and of course I have to be there. After all, I'm in dating mode at the moment and you never know who you're going to meet. Expectations, that's what it's all about. The trouble with expectations is that they come with potential disappointment attached. And man have I been disappointed after some of my girls' night experiences... I've had a lot of good times too at the club, that's for sure. And it seems some of my best memories are the ones from when I went out with friends, just for good fun and dancing and drinks and nothing else. It may be that the expectations for those nights have been edited in retrospect though, from "I hope I meet someone interesting" to " I hope I have a fun night with my friends". Regardless, there is some criteria that pretty much has to be fulfilled for a night to qualify as fun without romance/sex/dating potential/whatever:

• A large group of friends. It's not that we're incapable of having fun when it's just a small group of two or three, but the core group know each other so very well, we tend to end sticking to each other, whether it's on the dance floor or at the bar. When we're a large group there's more mingle possibilites, getting to know new people and such... And more drama!
• Speaking of which: Drama. There must be some form of it. Whether it's an unexpected (or expected for that matter) make-out session, a fight between girlfriends, exes, or just friends, a drunken confession of love... anything that makes for good gossip the day after.
• Someone must get very drunk. I don't know why that's a criteria, but it seems to be a common denominator for those great fun nights. Someone get's very drunk and makes a fool of themselves/create drama (see above). It's not always so much fun being that person, but hey, we've all been there.

The problem tonight is that there probably will be a large group going out, but they're not people I really want to be around... so that brings down the level of fun quite a bit. I tried to get The Ex to come along, but she had other plans and thus couldn't serve as my wing-woman tonight.

Still, I'm going to go out and I'm going to give high expectations another shot. Maybe I'll meet miss Right? Maybe I'll meet miss Right Now? Or maybe I'll just have a wonderful time making new friends and reconnecting with old ones? I'll deal with the potential disappointment tomorrow. Or the potential happiness. I'm hoping for the latter.