Families that gather

What an incredibly strange weekend. And before you try and second-guess me, her name was Rachel. She contributed mainly to it being so weird.

I mentioned on Friday night that the weekend involved going to a family gathering for a renewal of wedding vows thing. The shameful thing was I couldn't work out, and am still unsure, exactly how I was related to "the bride". I call her that to protect her privacy and whatever else. I think I worked out that she's my cousin's cousin, but as I say I'm not convinced this is right. But that's the context, she was renewing her wedding vows after 25 years.

Which means I was at the original wedding, too, and just over six months old. Apparently I had to be taken out of the service -- no change there, then, I was clearly hostile to churches or just couldn't be trusted to not cause an embarassment in public.

Anyway, at the house afterwards everyone was gathered. And as is typical with family and extended family gatherings, there were a few people there I didn't know -- and I'm still me, and still would rather ignore someone I don't know than go up and introduce myself. But I spent the whole night thinking this cute girl, Rachel, was a relative -- not like a first cousin or whatever, but probably a relative somehow.

Jump to much much later in the night and everyone has been drinking heavily and I'm in the hallway talking to Rachel, and her younger sister Ali, and my secound-cousin Lou. I think she's second cousin, I don't know if your cousin's cousin is your second cousin, or in the case of Lou, your cousin's daughter. But anyway. We'd been talking for a while when the obviously drunk Rachel has had enough to drink to ask "I'm not being rude or anything, but who are you?". I explain who I was, who I was in relation to Lou, and who I was in relation to the bride. It turns out that she is the bride's goddaughter -- and so not actually related to me at all.

For the record, during the course of the night I didn't have much of an opinion on Rachel one way or another. Sure, she was cute but I like to remind myself that cute girls are a dime a dozen in this world -- what I really want is a nice girl, or a funny girl, or an intelligent girl. We exchanged telephone numbers, but I didn't much of that any more than I did exchanging numbers with Lou.

Eventually the time came to go home. I had barely returned to my hotel room when my mobile phone beeps -- okay, it doesn't actually "beep"; it's a new phone and I have a sample from a Pixies song as my message alert. To rephrase, I had barely returned to my hotel room when my mobile phone goes "Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, yeah!".

Guess who is texting me? Rachel. I am pretty damn drunk at this point and all I have for reference are the messages I sent in reply. The first I think she was saying hi, apologising for being pissed and enquiring why I stayed at the party after my parents had left. The following messages all seem to revolve around where I was staying, I remember her asking and I remember wanting to be coy. I told her I was staying in a hotel locally, and deliberately ommitted the name, even though she never asked. She made some comment about wishing she was staying in a hotel, and that it must be exciting. No, not really, I'd said. More exciting than staying with family she replied (alhtough I am heavily paraphrasing) and I assured her, really, it's not. It's silent and the bar closed hours ago.

But behind all of this, there were little comments made by her that made me think she was interested. She was pretty eager to text me for a start. When she started asking me about where I was staying, I was concerned she might make some comment like "I wish I was staying with you" -- which to her credit she never said. I was also concerned if I told her exactly where I was staying she might get some idea about coming to me. I doubt the thought ever crossed her mind. Still, I remaind guarded because although she was cute she is also 17. I had already rehearsed my line if she said anything, I was to tell her flattered and all but it was moving too fast for me.

Mainly because I think it slightly innappropriate for me at 25 to get it on with a 17 year old. I justify it to myself, she's legal, she's a good 6 or 7 months older than the girl at work I called jailbait, whom I once went to lunch with. And I'm not actually doing anything. Just because she appeals to me doesn't mean I will -- or should -- act on it.

We sent several messages back and forth last night, but I never had call to tell her to back off or cool it. I sent her a message today, asking how she felt but got no reply -- I remember last night she ran out of credit and had to text me from a different number, so I'm not reading anything into it.

In a day or two without contact I will likely forget about her. And really, there's not much to say. Met cute girl. Was relieved we're not related as I fancied her. Was disturbed she's so much younger than me. Text drunkenly. Wake up hung over, hear no more from her ever again.

The rest of the weekend was fairly unremarkable...