Zhan's Birthday

Tonight was my friend Zhan's birthday. Zhan is a great friend from Oxford, a classic PhD-scientist type (he's overly logical in how he thinks, almost like the character Sheldon from the television show "The Big Bang Theory"), which I think is somewhat of what makes women confusing to him (those silly things like "emotions" seem to perplex him), but I doubt you could find a more loyal and wonderful friend anywhere. Hence why a few years ago he had a birthday party, and 32 people showed up, totally overwhelming the restaurant we were at, forcing a last-minute change to another restaurant, which amazingly managed to seat 32 people on a moment's notice. As the years have gone on, we no longer have 32 people showing up for Zhan's birthday party, but even with people spread out between Oxford and London, people still made the effort to come out, because Zhan's just that kind of guy, who inspires that loyalty in his friends.

Zhan decided to have his birthday party down in London this year, to make things easier for the majority of his friends who now live in London, travelling down from Oxford himself. Given that he was sure it was going to be a late night, he asked if he could crash with me, which was nice, to have him there too.

He admittedly arrived just as we needed to turn around and leave to be at the restaurant by 6:30 PM, but when we got there and joined the crowd, it turned out that we couldn't get a table until 7:30 PM. Yet the waitress promised that if we returned preciely at 7:30, she would have a table for us.

So then we went to another place nearby for drinks (luckily we were at Westfield, the largest shopping mall in all of Europe, so there were plenty of options), and just sat around having drinks and catching up with people. As I knew I was going to spend most of my time talking to Nikola (one of my best friends in the world, so of course it just works that way), I did try to give him an opportunity to catch up with other people as we moved around, although I still bought him a drink, something that he seemed weirdly uncomfortable with. Dude, I see you all of the time and I'm one of your best friends. What's wrong with buying you a drink? Alas, I think it's the "girl buying a guy" a drink thing, he's just too much of a gentleman to really every be okay with that. In which case, I think it's kind of sweet.

We got to dinner and of course I sat next to Nikola, and we ended up chatting about everything from the book he'd gotten Zhan (Malcolm Gladwell's "What the Dog Saw", a book I've been reading in increments in airport bookstores) to Tim's recent visit. It was rather reassuring to both of us, I think, that Tim had seemed kind of weird to both of us, that we hadn't been imagining things. We talked about various things he'd said, trying to divine what on earth was going on, but in the end neither of us had a clue. It's kind of sad though, to feel somewhat distant from one of your very close friends, without a clue as to why he was acting that way. In some ways then, good for the two of us to connect on that one... Mostly though, it's just always good to see Nikola, one of my dearest friends in the world. It's always good to have friends like that, who are just a joy to see, whenever you get to catch up with them.

After dinner, we went for one more drink at another bar, where I had a Long Island Iced Tea and debated with people why nobody from Long Island ever drank them (and eventually concluded that it was because the name was moderately insulting). I sat next to a chap who was starting medical school, and of course stupidly started talking about Mary Roach's book "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex", because that is stupidly always the most fascinating topic I want to talk about these days.

When that bar closed at 11 PM, we debated going to the Defector's Weld, but since Wetherspoons was nearby and it was raining, Zhan, Flori, the medical student and I all ended up there. Given that all of the drinks were only £1, Zhan bought the round (quite significant if you realise what a skintflint he is), until finally we all headed home at 11:30 PM. I got the sense that Zhan wasn't quite ready for the night to end, but we were all tired and ready to head home before we missed the last Tube!

Zhan and I then walked home together, I think feeling all warm and fuzzy after a nice birthday and a great night out with good friends...