No Drinking with the Young Dutchman

My phone buzzed at 8 AM this morning, waking me up. It was a text from the Young Dutchman: "Are you awake?"

I laughingly replied, "Well I am now!" and was rewarded with my phone ringing with a call from him. He had me giggling in no time flat as he then whispered into the phone, "Are you up yet? Am I bothering you? You awake yet?" in the over-eager manner of a little brother who knows darn well he's being annoying, but makes you laugh all the same.

He was calling as he wanted me to proof-read an essay he'd written and was about to submit for an exam. Because I'm an exceptionally good friend, at this point I climbed out of bed, booted up my computer, and went through a six-page essay line-by-line. It was a reasonably good essay, nothing brilliant, but with a few minor grammatical mistakes that I caught and was able to send back to him. I apologised for being anal, but as he said to me, it was exactly the sort of criticism that he'd been looking for.

I then made my way through the work day, until the Young Dutchman called again to say he was going to dinner with Lotte, but then would love to see me out at the Lansdowne. I had trouble getting out of my flat on time (why do I never shower earlier in the day?), but even with unwashed hair, made it out to the club.

I spotted him standing at the bar with his back to me when I arrived, so I ran right up to him and wrapped my arms around him in a big hug. As I snuggled into him, he turned around, and as I looked up at him I said, "This would be incredibly mortifying if it had turned out not to be you."

That gave him a bit laugh, as he then tried to mock-pretend that he didn't know me. It made me giggle, as I got a glass of water to join him with his ginger ale, and we made our way out to the terrace to say hello to people.

We spent a while chatting to our friend Georgie who had brought her new boyfriend along (who was an obvious introvert and seemed very unhappy about having to be social), and then other people came and found us as they passed on through. At one point, there was a very drink girl who came over and kept hanging off the Young Dutchman...he engaged her reasonably well but I was rather surprised at how drunk this girl was so early in the evening. I wondered if it was the impact of my own not drinking, or if people really were this obnoxious when they're drunk and you're not.

Still, at least I had the company of the Young Dutchman, and I even found a few others who had given up alcohol for Lent, so there was some good company in the sober crowd. Which then surprised me, because I had been sure that being so sober, I would head home early, but instead found myself still at the club at 11:30 PM! Yet when the Young Dutchman finally decided to make a move, I figured I would do the same, and so off we went home, with clear heads for the night.