Applicant finally admitted to exclusive club, spends evening looking at phone near famous people
A marketing consultant who waited three years for a Soho House membership wait to finally end has discovered that during the application process he forgot how to speak to other human beings.
Screenshot first, feelings later
Thirty-six-year-old Oliver March received his long-awaited membership email Tuesday. He immediately posted a screenshot proving access. Then he spent the evening inside the club avoiding eye contact. “I’ve wanted this for years,” he whispered while staring at Instagram. “It’s incredible.” Asked what was incredible, March gestured vaguely toward several upholstered chairs.
Private members’ clubs have become a major global hospitality business. Soho House’s own founder has discussed, on the record, the group’s growth from a single London club in 1995 into dozens of clubs operating internationally. Our fictional Oliver’s problem is more intimate.
He applied in 2023 because everyone he knew was trying to get in. His application required professional information, creative credentials and endorsements from members. March spent months finding proposers. One proposer moved to Lisbon. Another became a ceramicist. A third was expelled after bringing somebody who worked in insurance. March reapplied.
Optimising a life for a club he wasn’t yet in
While waiting, he carefully cultivated the sort of life he believed would look natural once admitted. He bought minimalist trainers. He developed opinions about natural wine. He learned to say “I’m between projects” instead of “unemployed.” He acquired a tote bag from a gallery he had not entered. By 2025 he was fully socially optimised. Unfortunately he stopped socialising because he was waiting to socialise properly later.
Then admission came. March entered at 7pm. He expected conversation. The room contained 84 people looking at laptops. One man was editing a podcast. Three women were photographing a drink. A screenwriter was pretending not to recognise an actor pretending not to notice the screenwriter. Nobody spoke.
March ordered a £19 cocktail. It arrived containing one enormous ice cube and something described as “foraged.” He photographed it. Seven friends responded with fire emojis. This was the most human contact he experienced all evening.
Documentation as a substitute for enjoyment
March attempted conversation with a man beside him. “What do you do?” The man visibly recoiled. In members’ clubs this question is apparently too direct. March tried again. “What are you working on?” Better. “Various things.” Success. They never learned each other’s names.
At 9pm March noticed everyone around him was also documenting themselves having a better time than they appeared to be having. The room was filled with proof of enjoyment. Actual enjoyment remained difficult to locate. One member spent forty minutes arranging a book beside a coffee. He never opened the book. A woman photographed the staircase. Someone photographed the woman photographing the staircase. March felt strangely relieved. “This is exactly what I worked so hard to join.”
Membership renewal arrives annually. March will absolutely renew. “Obviously.” “Why?” He looked horrified. “What if they didn’t let me back in?” This, economists say, is the genius of exclusivity. People will pay astonishing amounts to remain eligible to enter somewhere they rarely visit because losing eligibility would be devastating.
March now visits twice weekly. He says he has made many connections. How many friends? “That isn’t really the point.” He attends meetings. He networks. He collaborates. He “touches base.” He has not laughed spontaneously since February. His mother suggested going to a normal pub. March frowned. “Can anyone just walk in?” “Yes.” He shook his head. “Sounds desperate.”
His mother has since visited the normal pub without him, twice, and reports that she made three new friends and was home by nine. March has not yet processed this information. He has, however, started bringing a book to the club, in case anyone asks what he’s reading. So far, nobody has asked. He has read the same page for six weeks.
Friends who knew March before the application describe him as “basically unrecognisable,” though not unkindly. “He used to just ring you up,” said one, a claim March initially disputed before conceding it was probably true. He has since added the same friend on the club’s internal networking app, where they now exchange occasional emoji rather than speaking, which March describes, without apparent irony, as “actually a lot more efficient.”
March’s therapist, whom he now sees fortnightly, has suggested that the club membership may be functioning less as a social outlet than as evidence of a decision already justified, one he now feels obliged to keep proving was worth making. March says he found the observation “interesting” and has not brought it up again.
He has, however, quietly stopped renewing the tote bag subscription that first accompanied his application three years ago, on the grounds that he now technically belongs somewhere and no longer needs to look like he might. Friends say this is the first genuinely hopeful sign they’ve seen from him since the whole process began.
Whether it lasts remains to be seen. March has already enquired about a second membership, at a newer, even harder-to-join club two boroughs over, on the grounds that “you have to keep growing.” His friend, the one he no longer rings, simply sighed when told.
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