Some friends of mine through the club, Emily and Toby, invited me to their flat this afternoon for a luncheon. I was kind of curious to see where they lived and what their flat was like, and meet their friends. They'd already told me at the masquerade ball that a single male friend of theirs was coming, and was hoping that I might take a shine to him. Although I think most everyone is suspicious of set-ups, Emily and Toby are such a lovely couple that I figured any friend of theirs was bound to be a nice chap. Hence, I was at least going with an open mind.
As I walked up the road to their house, I ran into Toby making his way back to the flat with Theo, Emily's three-year old son. I've never quite been able to solve the mystery around that one, as Emily had this child, yet I have no idea if it was a relationship that didn't last, a marriage that didn't last, or what on earth happened to Theo's father. Regardless, Theo now even has Toby's last name, Emily refers to Toby as "daddy" with Theo, and whatever Theo's original parentage was, it's never mentioned. I have to give Toby credit on that front, as I don't think many 29-year olds would enthusiastically take on the challenge of becoming an instant parent to a 3-year old. Yet he does it with aplomb.
Even stranger, while most single mothers would have struggled financially, Emily somehow managed to avoid working and have the time to go out to balls and clubs all of the time, which is how she met Toby. She now doesn't work, but just stays home with Theo and awaits the birth of their first child together, a daughter to be named "Antigone" (or "Tiggy", for short), in January. I'm always puzzled by the two of them, yet I think it's fascinating.
As I ran into them, Theo was obviously having a total meltdown, demanding to be picked up and carried. Toby, at least, just kept moving right along, figuring that Theo would be fine as soon as they got him home, although when I had to get into the tiny elevator with that screaming child, it was quite noisy!
Yet true to form, as soon as we got back to the flat, Theo was miraculously cured, and we sat down for drinks (winter Pimm's, apparently, which was surprisingly lovely). I made conversation with the other married couple, Adrian (yes, another!) and his wife Jacqueline. Theo was quite rambunctious and jumping all over everyone, but I guess that's sometimes how it is, that your child goes into meltdown mode right when you have guests.
The final guest, the Single Male Friend, arrived, and then we sat down to eat. The starter was absolutely lovely, these packets of smoked salmon wrapped around salmon mousse, which went beautifully with the white wine. Then there was pheasant and potatoes for the main, before finally a summer berry cake thing for dessert. Really all amazingly delicious.
Better than the food however, was the conversation, which ranged widely over topics from "What would the housing market look like if we eliminated mortgages?" to "What evolutionary advantages are there to the unusual ways in which animals have evolved in Australia?" It was the sort of super-nerdy yet well-informed conversation where everyone has little facts or tidbits to offer to the debate, because we all spend our free time when we're bored at work reading Wikipedia. Perhaps it's only with an Oxbridge crowd that Mandelbrot would come up in conversation, but when it does, you know you're having a good time.
When it came to learning a bit more about people however, I'll admit I was flummoxed. I never like to ask to many boring, run-of-the-mill questions like, "What do you do? Where do you live?", lest I be seen as prying. Yet at pauses in the conversation then, I feel this odd compulsion to tell a story of my own, which then sends me into a self-doubting spiral wondering if I'm talking too much about myself. At the very least, since I collect humorous anecdotes the way some people collect bottle caps, I feel relieved that most of my stories about myself will have the table laughing their heads off in short order. So I love to be entertaining, even as I worry that it is a bit too narcissistic.
Which brings me to the crux of the problem of the evening, which is that since most all of the conversation took place in the group format and was restricted to the stories people felt like telling, there was no way for me to really get to know the Single Male Friend, to get any sense if he was interested or do so in return. I suppose I could take that as an instant "no", for if there isn't any immediate chemistry, maybe it isn't happening. Yet, do you always have to have immediate butterflies and sparks? What about if you get to know someone one-on-one? After all, the guy seemed wonderfully nice, so doesn't it seem like those are the guys you should give the most opportunity to for something to develop?
Admittedly Emily did make more than a few comments that she would like to see the Single Male Friend settled with a nice girlfriend and eventually with a wife. Luckily she did not directly reference me with any of these comments, but she really seemed quite set on the goal of finding him a girl!
Finally at the end of dinner, the Single Male Friend went home to pack (he'd actually just closed on a flat that morning), and I stayed chatting a bit with the remaining two married couples. Then a teenage baby-sitter arrived for the three-year old, and everyone went out to a church carol service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, but I begged off as I was truly worried in a warm church with lovely music that I was likely to fall asleep.
Overall, a lovely afternoon, one which makes me realise how much I enjoy intelligent friends and interesting conversation!
No comments:
Post a Comment