Prom for grown-ups

I told Sarah that I was going to quote her on this one. In discussions about New Year, she said she hated it -- that it was like "prom for grown-ups". It was such a succinct and apt description that I had to steal it for this post title.

This year, Luisa -- the mullet-haired Italian hottie -- flaked on me. I am now taking it personally and will no longer bother to reply to any mass-mailed missives from the mullet-headed one. Weeks and weeks ago, I got such a missive from Luisa -- letting everyone know she would be back in London from the 29th. Just in time for New Year, I told her we had to meet up and I wanted to see her for New Year. She seemed enthusiastic -- "I'll let you know when I'm back!!!!!" she said, or something over-punctuated to that effect.

I started to get a bad feeling in the last couple of weeks when I forwarded her a link to something for New Year and she told me she already had plans. What about me? I asked. Are we still meeting up? I never heard anything in reply. I emailed her on the 30th to ask if she was back, and what was happening, but again -- nothing. So it was no surprise that I continued to hear nothing yesterday. I have since remembered something similar, before she left London to go back to Italy there was some talk of a party or everyone getting together before she left. I thought I was included in everyone, but in the end it seemed I wasn't -- since I never heard anything more about the where or when. The two incidents together have shown me that she appears to have no interest in seeing me. And you know what? I don't care. I never really worked out if I fancied her, or just wanted to, so I'm hardly heartbroken.

But I got to think about New Year, and the previous years I've had. And I figured I'd summarise them, so here goes -- starting with the first year it was remotely interesting, with Fiona in 1999/2000:

1999: The "Millennium" whether it "technically" was or not, what with not having a year 0 AD, and Jesus not being born until about 5 AD anyway, it was the year the date changed. It wasn't a thousand years since anything, but we and the rest of the populace couldn't have given two shits -- it was an excuse to party.
And so 1999 I spent with Fiona, at a kind of street party in Shropshire. I was slightly apprehensive about Y2K perhaps causing nuclear warheads to self-launch, but I was with the one I loved.
Somewhere Fi might still have a photo of me from that night -- in some sexy blue shirt, black eyeliner (yeah, I was emo before even emo), grinning to the camera and holding a bowl of goldfish. Among the street party there had been various carnival stalls, including hook-a-duck-and-win-a-prize. I found quickly to hook a duck all you needed to do was hold the hook out and a duck would float onto it. So I won four goldfish, a goldfish bowl, some fish food, and a "police action set" which included a badge, whistle and plastic handcuffs.
As you might have noticed, the world didn't end that night.

2000: Not one to shy from commitment, I was still dating Fiona a year later. This time she came to my place for New Year, and we went to a bad house party with my friends. The party was truly awful, but we drank a lot and left almost as soon as the clock struck 12 to go to a party at Jon's brother-in-law's house.
Shortly after arriving at this party, Fiona felt unwell and I spent the rest of the night holding her hair as she threw up.

2001: After I left the country in January for 8 months, Fi and I were no more by the time New Year rolled around. But despite the intervening drama, I had started seeing San and we had just made the transition from friends that sleep together into an actual couple. In a pub in Camden we saw in the New Year with her friends, let off party poppers and drank champagne in the street. Then because her Mum didn't know we were going out, we decided to get a taxi to San's university. I don't know if anyone knows the distance between Camden and Uxbridge, but it was a long fucking way. In a taxi, after midnight, on New Year. I don't remember what the cabbie charged, but it was a hell of a lot. But we were together. The next morning San had to go to work as a waitress, but she felt rough and came back early. I don't think I was out of bed yet at that point.

2002: Not unlike 2000, San came to visit me and I took her to a house party. The details of the party itself all seems quite vague now, it was our friend Mike's party which as these parties seemed to involve hosted his whole extended family. We spent most of the night talking to people in the garden, and I think somewhere San has a picture of me from that night with a big, happy smile and cheerfully giving the middle finger to the camera.

2003: In the spirit of fairness, I was back at San's in London (and yes, we were still together -- it seems incredible now). We went to the academy in Islington, with her friend Jill and Jill's boyfriend, Ben. That was a weird one, since San almost left me for Jill once, and I had a bit of a crush on the girl myself for a while. But the night was just shit. The venue had only one bar open, and as result the queues for a drink were ridiculous. When the clock struck 12, I was still buried in a crowd of people at the bar. San and I tried to be enthusiastic, but we weren't feeling it at all.

2004: They say what goes around, comes around. Despite a year practically living together when we were at university together, San had started her second year and I'd completed my course. Since then things had got weird. San was increasingly distant and cold to me, and she was now the one leaving the country in January. That day I got to London early, bought a new shirt to wear that night, and checked out some venues we could possibly go to. I remember sending San a text saying "I'm making my way back to you, babe" to say I'd finished what I needed to do and was about to catch the tube. I stopped at a flower stall to buy San something to cheer her up -- remember, distant and cold -- and found I'd lost my wallet. I retraced my steps and got some items I'd just bought refunded in cash, then had to resign myself to reporting it as lost to the police. San didn't get her flowers, and we ended up staying in because I had no money and she didn't feel like going out. Over the course of the evening, San warmed to me a little. When the clock struck midnight, we took the stairs to the top floor of her flats and watched the fireworks over London. We watched St Paul's Cathedral illuminated in the flashes, picked out the telecom tower, and in the bursts of light were able to make out people, several streets away, sitting on roof tops. I held her close and told her "Everything's going to be okay. You've met me at a very strange time in my life." That night we agreed to take a break, and within days we were breaking up. Happy new year.

2005: With San back in the country, but the two of us no longer couple, I had nobody special to see the new year in with. It felt a little alien to me, so I volunteered to work behind the bar -- after all, I had suggested the Casino night for the entertainment. With live music and a casino I thought it would be a great night. The music was a disaster. The usual singer for the "band" we had booked was unavailable since she already had plans, so they drafted in a replacement. Who was too stage-shy to sing, so they had a series of special guests resulting in it feeling more like a bad karaoke night. The clock struck 12, I knocked back a double vodka and figured I had nothing to lose with trying to kiss Deb, whom I'd had a crush on all year. She didn't go for it, and that pretty much sums up that whole night.

Which brings us to last night -- with nobody special to spend the night with, and not even a mullet-haired Italian to save me from another night down the pub, things were looking desperate.

2006: With my parents now owning a flat on the coast, it seemed like a great place to spend the new year. A new city, different people, what better way to start the new year than in a place totally outside our comfort zone? I invited a few friends and mentioned I'd have to keep tabs on the flat with my parents since it didn't yet have the little touches that were important, like floor or furniture. When I found out that both were in situ, and was given a go-ahead to use the flat, the only people left interested were me and Jon. It didn't seem worth it. My parents suspected Jon and I might be a gay couple, and so we scrapped the whole idea. In the end, 2006 was met without a party or a pub or a sig oth -- it was greeted by myself, along with Jon and Calvin, sitting around in my house having a very quiet but very civilised night with a few drinks and some music.

And that's how it was. It might not have been exciting or meaningful, but it sure beat working, or being dumped.