The last I wrote about Claire -- the girl from the punk rock show -- was that I was in contact with her, trying not to be too eager, and I would see how things went. Since then she and I have spoken by way of text messages on an almost daily basis -- which was quite reasonable since while I was at Reading festival, she was at Leeds, so we could discuss bands and offer recommendations. I'd also suggested to her that we'd have to meet up for a drink when we got back to compare notes.
This week was ticking by and as ever we were exchange the occasional message here and there, until I got to the point where I had to invite her out for a drink on Friday evening. I'd spent days thinking about the wording of it -- how best to phrase it so that it didn't seem too big a deal, but also perhaps subtly date-like. There is nothing that I can not over-think. I was unsure about asking her, since earlier in the week we'd had an exchange of messages that I hadn't been able to quite work out and was unsure what her answer would be.
Lucky for me, when I invited her out she said yes. We discussed details and arrangements, where and when to meet, and it was all good. I spent a few days in Portsmouth this week for a job interview (you don't need to ask how it went, I think we all know by now) and although I wasn't coming back until Friday, I was sure there would be plenty of time. Even allowing three hours to drive back, and then allowing time to travel into London to meet Claire, it all seemed fine.
This all sounds like it's setting up for some disaster, but it worked out as planned -- I was back home with plenty of time to get a haircut and pick up some photos of Reading I'd had developed, and still have time to spare to clean my boots before catching my train into London.
I was barely on the train at 5.30 when I got a text from Claire. For a minute, I thought she was going to be cancelling on me and I cursed myself for not checking with her we were still on before I bought my ticket. Instead of cancelling, Claire was checking herself that we were still meeting -- I assured we were. Then she mentions that her friend will be joining us too. I couldn't very well tell her "No, that's absolutely not OK", so I said it was just fine and tried to think positively about it. Logically, it made sense -- she still doesn't know me very well, and might not want to meet someone who is almost a stranger on her own, and perhaps her friend would make excuses and leave once it was established I was safe to be around.
Although Claire and I had arranged to meet at 7, when I got into London she mentioned that she might be early -- I'd already planned to be early myself, so it wasn't a problem. Claire was already in the bar when I got there, and we still had the last half an hour of happy hour left -- so we stood outside in the fresh air and the sun and waited for her friend to arrive.
I couldn't tell you now how much we had to drink last night, except that it was a lot. Looking back, if the first bottle of wine was probably a mistake, the second bottle was almost suicidal -- even if it was between the three of us. As you might expect, Claire's friend didn't make any excuses and leave us together, but she was good company too and I didn't mind her being around.
At one point Claire and her friend went inside to use the bathroom, and so I started a conversation with some girls sitting on the next table to us -- asking them their thoughts on how best I should try and kiss her. I don't think they contributed anything helpful, but seemed to think that yes, it was definitely worth a try. By this stage in the evening, Claire and I were very tactile, so there was a lot of hugging and kissing on the cheek. While her friend was away, I thought it would be a good opportunity to try and kiss Claire.
I'd like to say that we kissed and before I knew it we were passionately rolling around on the kitchen floor in Hackney -- but in reality I tried to kiss her and she didn't go for it. There was some talk of just being mates and that works for me and no doubt because of our slightly inebriated state, there was no lasting awkwardness. Thinking back now, the drinking might be in my favour here -- she might not remember it.
There's a whole barrage of reasons why I shouldn't try and start anything with the girl anyway -- from the fact that I'm not over-keen on her smoking weed every day, to the slight drawback of her planning to emigrate to Australia this coming June.
Either way, whatever happens I'm still pleased to have met her and to have this fascinating person in my life.
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