Arleen's Birthday

This evening was Arleen's birthday. It was all a bit over-the-top, as she rented out a whole room in the Carlton Club and had 50 people for dinner. Open-seating with a buffet table (I am really growing to HATE open seating), and to avoid getting stuck sitting with that chap who I went on that horribly awkward date with (in that he stuttered horribly and was deathly dull to boot), I just ended up sitting with the Young Dutchman. Kind of feels like cheating, as I should get out and meet new people and not just hang with the Young Dutchman all the time, but at least I knew dinner would be tolerable that way.

Food was okay, and we had to buy our own wine, but we did get some entertaining bagpipe playing going after dinner, so I suppose on the whole it was an okay dinner. I did say something at one point that was so funny, the Young Dutchman absolutely choked on his wine, forcing everyone around him to start slapping him on the back as he just continued to die with laughter. I wish I could remember at this point what I said that had been so wonderfully witty as to make him laugh so much!



After dinner, a mutual friend of myself and the Young Dutchman stopped by with a few friends, as they had also been out at a black-tie dinner that evening and so we'd agreed to meet up after our respsective dinners. I was so shocked when as we were standing around chatting (dinner was thoroughly over at this point, people were just circulating and standing around finishing drinks), Arleen came up and demanded, "Who are you? And what are you doing here?" I was so taken aback, as it was just so thoroughly rude. I mean, dinner was over, they were in black-tie, and just wanted to catch up with a few friends. What was the point of the third-degree? Needless to say, after explaining they were there with me and the Young Dutchman, they made about 30 seconds of polite conversation and then made their excuses to leave, having been totally scared off my Arleen. After seeing them out, she seemed totally surprised when I came back alone, apparently having no awareness of how rude she'd been to these people. It seriously bummed me out though, because it's incidents like that which make people think Clubland is snobbish and exclusive, when people are so rude and unwelcoming. Seriously put a damper on the evening.


Then, despite wanting to go home, I somehow got dragged out to the RAC, where I was mostly tired and bored, but just as I got up and made the rounds of good-byes to leave, I got stuck in conversation with David Jones. Although I shouldn't say "stuck", because the reason I stayed was that at this point he decided to start telling some really funny and interesting stories about his days at St. Andrew's. And there was a part of me that wanted to complain, "Couldn't you have been this interesting EARLIER in the evening?" So in the end, instead of being the first person to leave, I was the last to leave, at around 3 AM. Whoops.