The clocks had changed last night, but I still managed to get up and down to Fulham to join my friend Will for his birthday celebrations. Given the time change, I was one of the first to arrive, and so we went for a drink outside where we found ourselves somewhat dragged into conversation with some very cute and VERY drunk rowers from the Cambridge blue boat from the day before.
As time went on, more people arrived, including my friend Sophie who I hadn't seen in ages. Some ate lunch, we all gathered and gabbed for ages, before then many left again. At that point, there was still supposed to be a second-wave of people arriving, so Will and I went for a little walk along the riverfront, where we gossiped a bit about our social-climbing friends, and I have to admit that it's one of the things I've always liked about Will: Being an actual peer of the realm, he really can't be bothered with social climbers, and instead just focuses on surrounding himself with nice people who are good fun.
We returned to the pub and were FINALLY joined by the Young Dutchman (he'd been texting me that he was coming for hours), and quite a few others, including Sophie coming back. I finally had some dinner, and just enjoyed the company of the crowds.
In the new crowds was my friend Piers, and we ended up getting into this conversation about "when do you know if it's a date?" Because Piers was telling me, "I definitely think there have been occasions where I've been out with girls, and I think I'm on a date, and I don't think they had the same impression. I mean, you ask a girl to go for a drinks, I see that as a date, right? But I think they saw it as just two friends grabbing drinks. So how on earth do you make that clear, that 'This is a date'?" Ah, poor Piers!
I pointed out that in these situations, he already was friends with the girl in question, which added to the confusion. If a guy you don't know asks you out for drinks, you pretty readily assume it's a date. But if you've already been "just friends" with the guy for a while, you continue to assume you're friends, right?. It's a question I wasn't quite sure how to answer for him, as I don't know how one makes the leap from, "We're just friends" to "We're now going on a date". I really had no answers for him...
Of course, this was all the more funny because the birthday boy, Will, was a guy who I went to the movies and dinner with about a year or two ago. One of those interesting evenings that just comes about, where by the end of it you're not quite sure if it was just an evening out with two friends or if he thought it was something more. He was good fun but a bit eccentric, hence I was glad when he never pushed it to go any further, and we just have always stayed in each other's friendship circle, going to the same parties and whatnot.
So anyway, in the course of conversation, he was mentioning how he knew various people, some who were at the party and some who weren't, and with a wink at me he said, "And I used to date some, of course." A part of me wanted to ask, "Oh wait, so that WAS a date?" Boys are really thick that way sometimes...
It was quite the marathon afternoon, as I arrived at the lunch at 12:30, we were joined by a few others, then a couple people left, then the Young Dutchman called to say he was coming, but other people were going, so I ended up taking a long constitutional along the riverbank with the birthday boy, just the two of us. Finally the Young Dutchman showed up (because you know I don't see him nearly enough), more people joined, until finally at 8:30 PM I begged off to go home (despite the Young Dutchman's protests of "But I just got here!" I was tired and he'd showed up six hours late, so despite his throwing a tantrum like a little boy, I went home anyway). What a day!
No comments:
Post a Comment