Have you ever noticed that the phrase, ‘Don’t take this personally’ almost always precedes an insult that you probably should take personally? It doesn’t cushion the blow of said insult, it just makes you seem daft for not knowing the difference between a statement and a kick in the teeth.
ONE TIME, LAST WEEK:
meet in the jcr at 8. we'll head out around 9:30 x
Russ had convinced me that I had to go out with him and the usual suspects from college last week.
‘It’s going to be massive!’
‘I don’t want massive.’ I knew what “massive” meant, and it was usually only massively obnoxious to be surrounded by the masses.
‘You have to come.’
‘I don’t, really.’
‘You do.’
Seeing no end to this conversation I gave in. ‘Fine, okay.’
He laughed. ‘Tough sell!’
‘You’ll just harass me until I agree anyway, so why fight it?’
‘That’s my girl!’
The night of “massive” proportions I was sitting in my room, half dressed and tired at 7:50. As I put on my makeup I got a text from a girl on my course I had always been friendly with, but never hung out with. We always talked to each other after lectures and around the department, so earlier that day I had invited her to come out that evening. She was also at my college, but no one would have known it as she spends her life in the library, so I thought I’d try and get her out to meet everyone. She vaguely resembles Emma Watson, so I’ll call her Hermione.
Hey! Are you still going out tonight? Thought it was time that I actually try to be social! If not, don’t worry about it, but just thought I would check since you mentioned it earlier! xxx
I wrote back right away. Hello lovely! I am indeed going out tonight and you’re always welcome to come along. We’re meeting in the bar. I’ll text you when I’m heading down xx
Great! See you soon xx
Pants. At that point I had to go out. It was already 8:15, but the bar was all of two minutes away so I sat on my bed staring into space some more. My phone buzzed again. It was Russ.
where r u?x
Calm down, I’m getting ready. Oh, and spell your words out like a normal human being! xx
whatever. hurryupx
His lack of grammar, capitalisation and proper spelling always aggravated me. He’s one of those people who still uses the free Nokia he got with his pay as you go tariff (is it technically a tariff?). Anyway, I suppose I could vaguely understand the frustrations of typing on one of those mobiles. I had to do it when I was twelve. Those were rough days.
I picked up the nearest dress off the floor and pulled it over my head. I glanced at the clock as I sprayed perfume on. 8:30. I pulled a pair of wool socks on over my leggings and then slipped my boots on over said socks. I was moving rather slowly, unmotivated by the night ahead of me. Finally, with nothing else to distract me or to allow for further procrastination I texted Hermione.
On my way xx
I gave myself a look over once in the mirror. Satisfied with what I saw I made a move for the door. Noticing Al’s card on my dresser I grabbed it and flipped the light switch before heading down to the bar.
Walking into the bar I was greeted with ‘Waheyyyyy!’ from Russ as he stood up to come give me a kiss.
I laughed at his enthusiastic greeting. ‘How much have you had to drink already?’
He put his fingers up in front of my face, holding them centimetres apart. ‘This much.’
‘Hmm, likely story.’
He kissed me on the cheek and then we sat down with the group, which was eight people strong and growing with me as the ninth. I put my stuff down next to Russ then walked across the room to grab a chair. As I came back to the table, a friend of mine who had been asking me to dinner for ages almost fell out of his chair trying to make room for me next to him. ‘You can sit here,’ he offered.
‘Oh, it’s okay – my stuff is over there.’ I said, dragging the chair over next to Russ. It’s not that I don’t like this friend of mine, it’s just that I don’t like like him. Hm, did people stop saying “like like” after the age of ten? I think probably so. But, as with Paddi, I can’t say no to people and so I have said yes to this dinner date because I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Then again, constantly saying ‘yes’ and never actually making plans isn’t all that nice either. Deciding that I couldn’t go around pleasing everyone all the time, I pulled my phone out and texted Al.
Hey, I’m in the JCR and I’ve got your card x
I was situated between Russ and a friend who I’ll call Earl’s Court, or Earl, because I’m pretty sure his father is a Lord or Baron or something. It’s all very Jane Austen at their household, thus ‘Earl’ seems appropriate. Earl grabbed one of the empty glasses on the table and indicated towards the bottles of wine on the table. ‘White or red?’
‘White please.’ I said, not wanting a rouge tinted mouth for the evening.
I absolutely adore Earl. He’s a first year and the youngest in our group, but he’s a sweetheart and totally hilarious. We immediately adopted him when he arrived this year, straight off of his gap year from somewhere exotic. I’m sure it was very spiritual, cultural and political though because that boy is wise beyond his years.
Half the table got up to go outside for a smoke and I basked in one of the many benefits of being a non-smoker, mainly the whole not having to venture into the cold part, speaking in a completely non-health related manner. Sitting there on my self-righteous high horse I realised one of the disadvantages to not smoking – being sporadically abandoned throughout the night. At that moment of self-pity, loneliness, and a bit of martyrdom for sticking to my ‘I’ll never smoke’ pledge, Hermione showed up.
‘Hello!’ She was cheery and adorable. I actually really like Hermione and have no idea why it’s taken us so long to finally hang out together in a non-academic context. We sat chatting while everyone was out in the cold and once they returned I introduced her to everyone. Cam took an immediate interest. Naturally.
As Hermione was being chatted up by Cam I looked at my phone. No reply from Al. I looked at the clock above the JCR doorway. 9:30. Russ had been pestering us all to leave, but there was still wine so we ignored him, the keen bastard. I called Al.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey, it’s me.’
‘Oh, hi!’
‘I texted you earlier. I’m in the JCR and I have your card.’
‘Right! The card.’
‘Yeah, you sent me an email about it today, remember?’
‘I do. Didn’t know if you would remember to bring it though.’
‘Well, I did.’
‘Well, thank you … how long are you going to be down there?’
‘Ehh, probably another half hour?’
‘Oh. I was going to come down in about an hour for a drink because I’m working now.’
‘We’ll definitely be gone by then.’
‘Okay, well if you have to leave and I’m not there can you leave it with whoever is working behind the bar?’
‘Um, okay …’ I said. He’s a bit of an odd one, Al. I wasn’t sure exactly what he thought about me. Like I said, our relationship has been almost exclusively physical.
‘I’ll try to catch you before you go,’ he added.
‘Alright, maybe see you later.’
‘Bye.’
I hung up and immediately forgot about the weirdness, distracted by Earl telling a story about a trip to Dubai.
We were working our way through the rest of the wine when I noticed Al walk in out of the corner of my eye. The only available seat was next to Hermione, so I introduced them as he sat down. Cam walked in afterward and looked slightly put off that Al had taken his seat next to Hermione. He took the seat next to Russ instead.
‘Alright?’ I asked Al.
‘Eh, I’m okay. I need to go back and do some more work.’
‘Too bad. No way we can convince you to come out?’
‘ ‘fraid not. It’s tempting, but I just can’t.’
‘Understandable. Oh, here’s your card.’ No one at the table took particular notice of the transaction or questioned why I had his card.
‘Ta.’ He stayed for about two minutes longer than left.
Five minutes later Cam looked around. ‘Where’s Al?’
‘Left.’ I said.
‘He’s not coming?’
‘No.’
‘Weird.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Alright!’ Russ announced loudly. ‘We’re leaving!’
We had made the poor guy wait long enough, so no one argued. I stopped at the toilet on the way out and upon emerging was immediately bombarded by Russ. ‘Everyone’s leaving! Let’s go!’
‘Alright, alright. Keep you knickers on!’ I said, kissing him on the cheek. I grabbed his hand and we walked outside. I let go once we were out of the building to jump on Cam’s back. Not the most graceful move in a dress, but the piggy back ride to the gate was well worth it. I hopped off as we walked onto the street.
‘My turn.’ Cam said, coming up behind me.
‘Ok … go!’ I said, bracing myself.
He jumped on and I took one step before my knees buckled below me. Luckily Cam is a fair bit taller than me and his feet hit the ground before we fell. He wrapped his arms around me and I hovered a couple of metres above the pavement, held up by Cam. Having been walking ahead of the entire group, everyone saw and there was an eruption of laughter behind us. Cam lifted me back onto my feet and put his arm around my shoulder as we laughed and walked along with everyone else.
We got to the club and it was practically empty.
Disappointed, Russ moaned, ‘I thought there’d be more people.’
‘It’s because we’re here at ten, you twat.’ I said. ‘It’ll fill up soon.’
And fill up it did. Over the course of an hour the population in the club multiplied immensely. I was standing with Earl when he decided we needed drinks.
‘Here,’ he said, handing me a tenner. ‘They’ll serve you quicker than they’ll serve me. Get me a Becks and get yourself whatever you want.’
‘Okay.’ I said and made my way towards the bar, squirming through a crowd of people until I had the weight of ten drunk people pressing me against the edge of a counter. I wonder what would happen if I just elbowed everyone behind me, I thought. Then I thought that those people were probably being shoved from behind and thinking the same, so I resisted. Until a girl who was being held up by her boyfriend stepped on me and tried to elbow her way in front of me. I may or may not have used a bit of physical force to get her to back off, but whatever I did it worked because she got her sharp heel out of my foot and whinged to her boyfriend, ‘I hate that girl!’
I turned around with raised eyebrows that begged the question, ‘Oh really?’ and her boyfriend mouthed I’m sorry at me. My face softened and I smiled. Poor guy. Anyway, I got my drinks – and on a side note: whenever you find yourself in a places as crowded as this always buy bottled drinks as opposed to ones that come in glasses unless you want half of your drink being knocked down your front by drunks.
I made my way back to Earl and some other people from our college, one of whom I’d never met before. He introduced himself and said he was doing a PhD. We talked for a fair bit before I took off to find Russ, Cam and Hermione.
The boy I had been talking to earlier, despite being quite attractive, was a bit socially awkward for reasons I’m getting to, but it is for those reasons that he will be referred to as Socially Awkward Boy. Or SAB.
SAB managed to track me down once I had been reunited with my original party and as we began dancing it was clear he was a very good dancer. I laughed as he spun me around the crowded dance floor.
‘Do you know how to tango?’
‘No!’ I laughed.
‘Do you want to learn?’
‘No chance.’ I said, still laughing.
‘No?!’
‘No! Not now, you nutter!’
‘Fair enough.’ He said, wrapping his arms around my waist. He had been looking at me like he wanted to kiss me for awhile. He leaned in towards me and I leaned away for a moment. A flash of disappointment crossed his face and I smiled, ran my hands through the hair on the back of his head and pulled him towards me for a kiss.
We danced some more and at some point I excused myself to go to the loo. I ran into Hermione and more people from our course and got distracted taking shots with them. We decided to make our way back to the dancefloor and as I walked through the club I felt someone come up behind me, wrap their hand around my waist and say, ‘Hey baby.’ It was SAB.
If you want me to immediately judge you, call me ‘babe’ or ‘baby’. Boyfriends saying it occasionally is okay, but someone you’ve just met? No. Unimpressive.
‘Hiiii,’ I said, turning around out of his grip on my waist to face him. ‘Where have you been?’ I asked, completely uninterested in his answer.
‘Just dancing. Want to go back out there?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ He was cute and a bit endearing, I’ll give him that. But there’s such a thing a too keen.
We danced until I was ready to throw in the towel and head back to college. I turned to SAB. ‘I’m going home.’ I yelled over the music.
‘I’ll walk you.’ He yelled back.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I want to. Besides, you can’t walk home alone,’ he slurred, touching my arm. I hadn’t noticed how drunk he was until that moment. I was slightly concerned that he couldn’t walk home alone.
‘Okay, fine. I’ll be right back.’ I went to queue at bag check and ran into Russ. ‘Hey love, I’m gonna leave.’
‘Noooo!’ He cried.
I laughed. ‘Don’t do any more shots.’
He looked back at me with a vacant stare. ‘N-no, I don’t’ think I will.’
‘Alright my love, be safe.’
‘Mu-wah!’ He said as he kissed me on the mouth. It was a bit sloppy, but I still found it funny.
‘Bye you mentalist.’ As I pulled away he blew kisses at me. I made it back to SAB who was waiting exactly where I had left him. ‘Ready?’
‘Yeah!’ He said, excited to see me.
As we walked back to college it turned out that he was actually interesting to talk to when I didn’t have to shout over a crowd and loud music. He was quite drunk, though. We finally made it back and I asked, ‘So where do you live?’ He told me and it was ages away from where we were. Since he was a grad student, he didn’t live in college. ‘That’s so far!’
‘I know. And I’m knackered. Can I stay at yours?’
I inhaled through clenched teeth as I looked across the court. ‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘Ta. Promise I won’t try anything.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Well not unless you want me to,’ he said, winking.
‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘Okay.’
‘Come on then.’ I led him towards mine and once we were inside I said, ‘The walls in these rooms are very thin so don’t be too loud and if you leave before I get up, don’t slam the doors.’
‘Got it,’ he nodded drunkenly.
‘Good.’ I went to my wardrobe and pulled out an oversized hoodie and a pair of boxer shorts. I put them on as SAB stripped to his pants. He had a decent body, kind of like a swimmer. But that was no matter. I tried to make myself as sexually unattractive as possible with the baggy clothes, but that didn’t work as SAB started kissing me as soon as I had turned the lights off. He was a decent kisser so I let it go on for a bit before pulling away.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do anything.' He said, exasperated. 'I’m too drunk. Sorry to be such a disappointment.’
I tried to stifle my amusement and luckily he couldn’t see me smiling in the dark. ‘It’s okay, I think I’ll live.’
‘Goodnight.’ He said, kissing me on the cheek. I turned away from him and he got into big spoon position, holding onto me like I was some fluffy childhood toy.
Oddly enough, the next morning I woke up on my stomach, practically on top of SAB with my arms wrapped around him. His arms were locked around me as well. This is kind of nice, I thought. Sometimes physical contact is all people really want. At least a good cuddle is all I really wanted. I think SAB was probably after something a bit more, but that’s his problem. He woke up, looked down at me and kissed me on the top of my head. I’m not sure if he realised that I was awake or not. I rolled onto my back and looked over at him. ‘Good morning, sunshine. How are you feeling?’
‘Hey, yeah I’m feeling pretty rough.’ Running his hands over his face and covering his eyes he added, ‘I’m never drinking again.’
‘Likely story.’ I got up out of bed and started putting an outfit together.
‘Busy day?’
‘Yeah. I have a lecture in about an hour.’
‘Tough.’ He said, then after looking around a bit he added, ‘I should probably get to work as well.’
‘Okay.’
‘Sorry again I was so weird last night.’
‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it.’
He started putting his clothes on and as he put his jacket on I could see the wheels turning in his mind. ‘Look, don’t take this personally, but I don’t think this was such a great idea.’
‘What?’
‘Me going home with you.’
‘Interesting,’ I said squinting. What did this boy think had happened?! Here I had helped out someone too drunk to function and this is how I’m repaid? How was it that I was being rejected by someone I wasn’t even trying to pull? Slightly bothered with the awkwardness he had just filled the room with, I picked up my clothes off the bed and said. ‘Right. Well. I’m going to shower.’
‘Right, okay.’ He said, then paused for a minute before he took a step towards me, kissed me on the cheek and then turned and walked out the door.
I stood in my room, a bit shocked for a moment. ‘Meh,’ I said, shrugging and walking out into the corridor towards the shower.
I came back and had a text message from SAB.
Sorry again, thanks for letting me stay.
I contemplated what to do. I was tempted to just delete the message, but instead wrote him back. If nothing else, maybe it would get him to stop apologising.
Actually, don't take this personally, but I think giving you my number wasn’t such a great idea.
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