The night of my best friend’s 21st birthday couldn’t have arrived soon enough. In an effort to carry on the tradition highly revered by those who believe that life doesn’t start until you turn 21, my friends and I had a girls’ night out to celebrate. As we made our way to the door of a Chicago nightclub, I was thinking about what the night might have in store until I tripped, fell and bounced off the sidewalk. Having mastered the art of falling years prior, I picked myself up and laughed with a crowd of about 80 who witnessed my graceful descent to the concrete. I made my way to the door where I was promptly rejected. Humiliated and in pain, I hailed a cab as my head hung down in shame.

During my cab ride home, I tried consoling myself with the stories I had heard from a number of my friends who had been rejected at various hotspots around town. Fake IDs and improper attire were among the top reasons I heard from people who were forced behind the proverbial velvet rope. The cab driver even shared his stories of the times he was rejected at local dives.

I remembered the tragic tales told by a bouncer at a popular nightclub of those who arrived looking for a good time only to be rejected because they didn’t fit the standards set by the owner. I was disturbed by the undisputed discrimination that festers at the velvet rope.

Discrimination takes shape in many different forms, depending on the location. Either you’re too gay, too straight, too black, too white, too fat, too skinny, too clothed, too ugly or too dorky to be exempt by the “We reserve the right to refuse anyone” disclaimer at the door. Sometimes the ID is legitimate and the attire is proper enough, but the $25 cover charge is reason enough to walk away.

The problem doesn’t lie in the image of the person, but the expectations of club owners who dream of being the next Steve Rubell by reincarnating Studio 54.

“E! True Hollywood Story,” “54” the movie, “The Last Days of Disco” and tales we hear from our elders about their rendezvous at the most popular nightclub ever keep a romanticized vision of glamour, illicit fun and the ultimate nightlife. Rubell entertained the most fabulous people, shunning the less-desirable crowd in exchange for the beautiful and the famous. In an effort to stargaze and pump undisclosed amounts of drugs and alcohol into their bodies while boogeying to Donna Summers, people longed to enter the realm of Studio 54. Celebrities like Cher even were turned away by the bouncers in exchange for someone who had the look Rubell was trying to achieve that particular night.

More than two decades after the fall of the Studio 54 empire, we still long for the quintessential nightclub.

Extreme measures are taken to reach past the velvet rope. Acquiring the perfect club outfit, such as shiny-disco-ball shirts and leather blazers for the gentlemen and black pants and tank tops for the ladies is essential for gaining a step toward the entrance. A $50 bill folded in the palm or a shameless attempt at hiking up an already mini skirt are alternatives if the shirt isn’t shiny enough.

An overtly pretentious crowd, scantily clad caged women making the most of their cleavage, a deejay spinning records overhead and bartenders who pretend not to notice those whose tips didn’t match half of what the drink cost are what clubhoppers are faced with after they make it past the velvet rope.

In an attempt to garner a luscious crowd of the who’s who, club owners prove their delusional trains of thought. Most likely being the ones who were rejected at the doors of Studio 54 or other desirable locales of their youth, they choose to inflict the dull pain that haunts them on a majority of people

Walking by the entrance of such clubs, one can hear the conversations among groups of people puzzled as to why their IDs weren’t accepted or why their presence wasn’t welcome. Some may not even be puzzled because of their recurring acquaintance with rejection.

It’s not fun being the one left out in the cold while the pseudo- “cool” people with sharpened motor skills dance and drink the night away into a stupor. Nightclubs with a door policy lurking in the depths of discrimination should wake up from their dreams of introducing Gloria Gaynor to a crowd of the polyester-laden elite.

This isn’t 1977. And we surely aren’t anywhere near Manhattan.