Too Many People for Drinks

Tonight was the usual "Last Wednesday of the Month" drinks at the O&C, which I usually look forward to, but not this month...

Because on Sunday, a random girl from Clubland decided to send out an invite to a bunch of her friends for "Cheeky O&C Drinks". Given that one's club in Clubland is supposed to be your "home away from home", inviting people to a club that is not yours is the equivalent of inviting people over to someone else's house. It's just not done.

So I was stressed about what to do, not wanting to engender bad blood by giving the girl the lecture she desperately needed about proper social behaviour (I was glad when a friend I complained about this too asked me, "Was this girl raised by wolves?" reinforcing my opinion of her social cluelessness), but also terrified about what would happen if the club got over-crowded.

When I arrived, there was only the Wild Welshman, Callum, and two work colleagues of the Wild Welshman having drinks, so I joined them, and just enjoyed chatting with the Wild Welshman for a bit. He shared some of his wine with me, and I bought another bottle later. I like how we always have that easy understanding...

We were joined after a bit by four more O&C types, as well as Piers, who the Wild Welshman had apparently invited. Then a large crowd of Inter-Club faces arrived en masse (I have no idea why they weren't stopped at reception) and congregated at the bar. The bartender signalled to me to move them along to the Upper Drawing Room, so although it was like herding cats, I managed to get them all moved on out to the other room.

I then returned to the bar to fetch my handbag, and all seemed to go well for a while until even more people arrived (thankfully mostly newer O&C members who I recognised from last month's drinks), and I kept having to shuffle people around.

Yet at around 9:30, people just drifted back to the bar, which upset our elderly bartender (as I heard from quite a few folks he had been complaining too...the fact that a lot of people didn't realise it was a cash bar probably didn't help). I found myself trying to talk and catch up with quite a few people, but by 10:30 I was just flipping out from the stress and the numbers. The Wild Welshman had already left earlier, with promises that we should meet early for drinks on Monday, and then two friends from the Oriental Club were also leaving, so I saw no particular reason to stay. Hence I just slipped out without saying good-bye or making my apologies to anyone, I figured they could handle themselves and I'd just had enough for the evening. Let's hope something like this doesn't happen again any time soon!