The three of us talked for a few minutes. Dave was surprised to see me, since he didn't know I was coming let alone that early. A few minutes after sitting down though, I said that I was starving and needed food so Dave came with me to the chippy, while Glenn stayed in the pub. It was about 5:45pm by now.
In the chippy, I was surprised to find Brian. He in turn was surprised to find Dave with me and greeted him warmly.
"Alright Dave! Long time no see!"
"Hello Brian!"
"How's life treating you, mate?"
"Ah it's going good"
Brian then turned to me.
"Neil mate", he said, changing his tone of voice to a more serious one "I was really impressed with your work today".
"Thanks"
"Some of it looks really good," he continued, "I meant to say something to you earlier about it, but I didn't want the rest of them to feel bad, you know. And I could of hit Tony for saying what he did."
That confused me slightly and annoyed me. It felt like he was doing what Bronek had done earlier in the day, keeping the approval of my work quiet for fear of making the others in my class feel bad. And then he says that he thought Tony shouldn't of said anything either. If I do good work, I want it to be appreciated and whether that appreciation comes while everyone can see it or not shouldn't matter. My classmates aren't about to start crying if they hear that someone has done some good work. I know that if a tutor was truthfully saying that one of them had done great work, I'd be fine with it and it'd make me want to improve further. I hate all of this politically correct appeasement that seems to go on.
Anyway, we returned to the pub after talking for a few minutes and I ate my chips on the way, discarding the remainder once we got there and sat back down with Glenn. It wasn't until 7pm that Jamie arrived, then Stan did a while later. Then, around 7:30pm, Jamie and Stan left again to go and collect the girls who were coming. Jamie had been saying all day how Andrea would be perfect for me, how she was quite nice looking etc. It was hard not to get my hopes up.
Around 25 minutes later, they returned and Jamie was followed by two unknown girls, Stan, Mandy and a group of guys that Mandy seemed to know. The two unknown girls sat down and Jamie did the honours of introducing me and the rest to them. Lauren and Christie were there names. Lauren was in Jamie's class at college and he thinks she fancies him. Unluckily for him, he's taken, although he says he doesn't fancy her anyway. Liar.
I said hi to both of them when I was introduced, but didn't really talk to them much for the rest of the night. I didn't know what to say. Infact, I wasn't really in much of a mood to talk to anyone. I was just tired. The only real reason I had come in the first place was to see who this Andrea person was because I knew that if I didn't, I'd only be asking myself "What if?" once I was home.
I found out about ten minutes later, when Laura and an unknown girl came to join us. No one introduced this unknown girl, but she sat next to me and Jamie next to her. I leaned over to Jamie.
"When is Andrea coming?", I asked and he looked at me confused.
"This is Andrea", he said.
"Oh right!", I said, surprised. "Hello"
"Hi"
"I'm Neil"
Dumb me, but no one had introduced her!
Danielle arrived after a while and the group was now complete for the night. There were two groups infact, 'our' group, which consisted of everyone I've mentioned so far and Mandy's group, which consisted of a bunch of guys no one seemed to know. We kept asking each other if anyone knew who the guys were who were with Mandy, but no one did so when Mandy came over, I shouted over to her to come and introduce her friends to us which she did. Jamie went over to them after a while and started talking to them, while everyone bar me was slowly getting drunk. It was also getting incredibly loud, sitting inbetween a bunch of drunks, especially since Danielle can be a loudmouth when she's tipsy, as was Andrea. It was not the nicest of places to be when you're sober.
I attempted to talk to Andrea throughout the night, but my conversational skills are crap and any attempts didn't last longer than a few seconds of talk. I didn't really say much all night, just watched as everyone got more drunk.
I did, however, take pictures throughout the night.
Claire arrived at some point or another, looking quite sexy as normal. She gave everyone a hug, including me and sat down in amongst the group. I sat next to her after a while, simply because there was no space to sit after I had come back from the toilet. She talked to me for a while, saying how she hasn't seen me for ages, where have I been etc. Again, I never know what to say, especially to someone like Claire. Plus you can tell that she knows that I'm not like the rest of the people there. I just get a feeling that she talks to me differently. I'm not saying in a bad way, just different.
All night, my attention had been away from the group. I had been amusing myself by watching the barmaid all night who is absolutely gorgeous. She doesn't look like she should be behind a bar. I kept wishing how I had the confidence to get to know her. Go and order something from the bar, but ask something about her. Her name would be a good idea, for example.
Towards the end of the night, I think it was Jamie who suggested that I get a group picture of everyone so everyone jumped on in and I took one. Moments later, the hot barmaid was walking past, so in a moment of randomosity, I decided to take one of her too. She got flustered for a second and resumed what she was doing. I'm sure she'll probably think I'm a freak now. Oh well.
I recieved a text of Alice, saying that she was free the next day so if I wanted to go shopping, that we could. That was a nice surprise.
We all left around 10:40pm. It was quite nice being in a group of that size. Made me feel a bit safer.
While walking, Dave asked if I was going to Le Bateau and I said no. Claire heard this and then she asked me as well, then asked why not. I just think it's so very boring in there, plus I was tired and wanted to go home, plus I didn't want to waste �10 in a cab to get home later on in the night instead of on the train.
"Come on", Claire said to me, "You know you want to" and she then lowered her hand to my groin and squeezed a few times. "Come on, bit of incentive!", she joked. I laughed nervously and surprised. Getting felt up in the middle of a street while Dave is standing next to me by a very attractive girl isn't something that happens often. Regardless, I was pretty damn disappointed when she stopped!
We neared the train station and everyone turned to go to the club, but I said that I was going home. No one heard me, so I just turned to leave, but they turned back and then asked me to come along again, with Claire taking the lead.
"Oh come on!", she said, "You'll enjoy it!"
"Nah, I'm tired"
"Come onnn. You can even stay at mine or something"
"Nah, I don't want to"
"Ohhh, ok then. Well I'll talk to you soon then! Keep in touch!"
She gave me a hug and resumed walking. Mandy also gave me a hug and I said goodbye to both of them, Lauren, Christie and Andrea.
Jamie was behind them and though he looked incredibly drunk, shook my hand and said goodbye.
"You still wanna go shopping tomorrow?", he asked me.
"Well actually, Alice text me saying that she wants to go tomorrow so I was thinking of going with her, but yeah, you come tomorrow as well and you can meet her.
"Alright man, talk to you tomorrow then"
They all went off to the club and I went home, texting Alice saying I'd meet her on my way.
I'll write the rest in another entry.
