Pub Quiz

After a brief text when he got to work in the morning, the Tall South African didn't text or call me for the rest of the day, and I found I was almost worried. Why on earth am I devoting so much mental energy to worrying about when that boy is going to call? Luckily, the work day kept me busy, so I didn't have much time to think about it. Then, at the very end of the work day, he called me, and I had to laugh at myself for getting so stressed out about him not calling. We chatted for a little while about our respective work days, and then I could hear the sounds of trains in the background. At this point he said he would have to call me back in a bit, as he was about to go underground. Dammit, that means he's in London. And of course didn't tell me. And once again, despite my best resolutions, I hadn't showered before work.

I flew through the shower, which I needed to do anyway to go out for the evening, trying to get myself cleaned and organised as quickly as possible for whatever might come up.

Luckily he didn't call me back, and I made it to the pub for the pub quiz without incident. Although when I went downstairs, the place was packed and there were absolutely no chairs available. I stood around waiting for Zhan to arrive, and eventually we were able to squeeze four of us onto a table built for two. I had a good time chatting with Andy, who I hadn't had much of a chance to catch up with last week, and had two pints of Guinness (so much for the "no drinking in January" thing).

The quiz was an odd mix between "stupidly obvious and insanely challenging", but in the end we came in 5th. I was pleased to at least make one positive contribution to the team when I correctly guessed that the answer to one question about TV Cop shows was "The Hill Street Blues." I'm normally terrible at pub quizzes, so that was a good one to get right!

Zhan (our super-competitive friend) was a bit disappointed with our middle-of-the-pack showing, but the rest of us seem to have enjoyed getting out and having a few drinks with friends.

Andy and I said good-bye to Zhan and then traveled home together, since we live quite close to one another. On the train journey, I mentioned the name of the girl he'd been dating, as I'd had a sneaking suspicion when we got together last Saturday that they were no longer dating, but I didn't know how to ask. I'd been trying to think of a way to bring it up all evening, and as I was now running out of time, I'm sure I came up with the most clumsy and awkward way of dropping her name into conversation.

However it turns out that I was right, and Andy said, "Well actually, my girlfriend is no more, and hasn't been since October."

Okay, I'm sorry that Andy's relationship broke up (I don't know what happened, but he did comment that it was quite ironic that it happened right after she'd come over to start a degree here), but I'm at least glad that my gut has proven to still be somewhat perceptive. I feel like lately I've been missing tons of stuff (people have been sleeping together, dating, breaking up, and I'd generally had no idea that anything was going on in the first place), so it's good to know that I still catch some stuff.

When I got home, I saw that Earley Bird was online, this guy that I used to date when I lived in Boston. As is the way with all exes, we don't really speak anymore, although I'd say that is more his fault than mine. (At one point, realising that I initiated nearly all of our conversations in our attempts to "be friends", I decided to not initiate a conversation with him unless he reached out first. A year then passed without him getting in touch. Although I think it was a very effective experiment that taught me everything I really needed to know. Chalk that up to lessons learned from my 20's).

However, his birthday had recently passed, and so I figured it would be the nice thing to do to take this opportunity to wish him a Happy Birthday. I figured I would just wish him a Happy Birthday and that would be that, but he surprised me by thanking me for the Christmas card I sent him (no response to that at the time he got it, of course, but note what I said above about how he doesn't initiate contact). And then he got into a discussion with me about how he was putting new tires on his truck and random boring crap that I really have no interest in. Once again reminding me of how little we really had in common. No wonder the relationship failed.

While I was having this conversation, the Tall South African called, once again on the train home (so calling me for entertainment, as usual). Apparently this evening he had been out at dinner with Lotte, her fiancee, and her fiancee's friends. Given that Lotte's fiancee is almost a stereotype of a brandy-swilling toff, I was rather curious about how this had gone. They were good guys, he claimed, although entertaining in their own weird, posh way.

We lost each other a few times as he went through tunnels, and then he apologised and rang off with me as apparently he needed to call Lotte. I needed to go to bed anyway (it was past midnight at this point), so I rang off with him, not really believing his promise that he would call me back after he'd spoken to Lotte. The boy is a good friend to go down to London as much as he does, but it's a pain that he has to take the train back so late at night!