Don't drink and text!...or should you?

Here's an equation sure to get you a lot of regret:

Alcohol+boredom+a cell phone

Last night, I was out with the cute neighbor on a S.A.D. bar crawl. We were supposed to be meeting up with other single friends, but that didn't end up working out. (Although I realized that I really need to make some local female friends. I was planning on spending the evening with the cute neighbor, McNerdy, and the umpire. Those are the three friends I hang out with most frequently. Kind of hard to meet other men when with men.) The cute neighbor and I were having a good time, however, drinking too much and telling people that we were indeed Olympic ice dancers. We won gold in Torino, you see, but failed to qualify for Vancouver, apparently because I showed up to the qualifier hungover. Drunk people will believe anything. ANYTHING.

Later on in the evening, I wrapped up a conversation with an accountant who lives on my street and apparently goes to my gym. He left, and we ordered another round, and the cute neighbor started chatting up a girl. I looked around for someone to talk to, but by that time of night, everyone was either too far gone, or had already found their evening hook-up. I was full of vodka, I was bored, I whipped out my phone. I texted the Dark Horse. Something along the lines of my being an undisputed twister champion, and being extremely bendy, and shouldn't we take advantage of that?

It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but when I woke up this morning, I thought: Undo! Undo! Undo! That sounds that I heard was my status at having achieved ice queen nirvana flying- no, whooshing- out the window. I know that on the drunk-text scale (which we should really establish) of 1-10, 1 being "Haha, that was funny" and 10 being "I want to die, I want to die, I want to DIE," this one would probably fall on the lower end of the scale. But still. After consulting with both Grayer and Fenella, I sent my retraction: "Apologies. Must learn to never drink and text." Within a few minutes, a response: "No, it was funny!"

Whew.

Hours later, while I was watching actual figure skating on tv, a text dings: It was the Dark Horse, apologizing for not sending much of a response earlier, followed by "sooo... you're bendy, eh??? ;)"

Huh.

I responded that I am in fact bendy, and that I won 5 straight games of Twister while wearing a figure skating costume. Impressive?

Indeed. Then he asked if I still had the costume.

It was most unexpected. And very interesting. Apparently when there is no pressure of an actual relationship, you have nothing to lose and throw all the rules out, "going rogue" can work out well.

But just to be on the safe side, I think I'll hand my phone over to a responsible adult next time.

Fast-forward

Might I just say, I woke up to the most bizarre text this morning. Not exactly on the caliber of Texts from Last Night (my most recent guilty pleasure/obsession) but equally awkward. Sadly, he was not drunk, not kidding and it was sent at 7:30 in the morning!

From: The Prosthetist

This may be to forward, but have you showered with anyone and would you consider me? Had a dream about it last night

Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, that is too forward. You've successfully freaked me out. My showering habits are none of your business, especially considering the last time we were alone together you were in love with my best friend. We haven't even hugged. Why are you considering showering with me?

The Prosthetist has been dutifully texting me since he decided on me at Christmas time. He will text me in the morning, he will text me in the middle of the afternoon to see how my day is, or he will try to have a conversation with me via text in the evening. Thank goodness the fam invested in an unlimited texting plan. I know not everyone is a fan of texting, but I'm just hoping this won't turn into phone calls. How awkward!

I admit, I've been bored/lonely so I have actually been responding. Often he's quite normal. However, he keeps talking about coming up to visit me (Here's for hoping this kid has no follow through) and asking what we'll do while he's here. I suggest bowling?! Apparently, he has showering in mind. Boys ruin everything!

Remaining aloof...

I've been quite proud of myself after the Welsh Willy episode. Apart from the initial over thinking of our drunken evening and a few texts about snowglobes I was aloof. And remained aloof. It helped that he was halfway around the world for 2 and a half weeks but I'm still proud of myself. I didn't email or text him. Maybe I checked his facebook page a few times but I am only human.

Then last week I feared my new found aloofness was sure to crumble as I knew he would be back in the UK. I wanted to text him but a quick call to my friend put that idea swiftly out the window. Then I checked my email. Oh yes, it was WW. We emailed a couple of times and then I got a bit fed up. Vi will tell you this about me, I'm not very patient. At all. And emails make me impatient. So instead of emailing him back, I text him. Then I took the plunge to see if he was up to anything at the weekend. Whether this was the 'correct' move or not I don't know. People have told me different things and I didn't want to play games. We arranged to meet on Sunday but then he had to postpone because he forget about pre-existing plans. (I decided to allow this as he was quite jet-lagged).

Still, some of the aloofness remained. I didn't get in contact with him. As I said to my friend, if he wants to see me he will contact me. Which he did. So now we're meeting this coming Sunday. If he postpones again he will be in trouble.

Now, fear not fellow WWBD? bloggers. I am not reading too much into this. I am not assuming that simply because we're meeting up then something will happen. This is silly. I want us to be friends and meet up because we did get on really well. And I need more friends in London. If the idea of something more than a platonic friendship were to be offered would I accept? Oh yes. Am I going to bring up the conversation of something more than a platonic friendship? Oh no. Do I want him to give me 'the rejection talk' and make me feel like a complete idiot and turn the shade of a tomato? Hell no!

So I guess there are a few options of how Sunday could go. I'll keep you posted.

Mr. Darcy didn't text

Ever since my date on Friday night with Popcorn Man, he has contacted me daily- via text message. Early Saturday afternoon, he texted me to tell me how much fun he had on Friday night. Ok, no problem. It's kind of nice to know when you were on top of your game. Later that evening, he texted to ask what I had going on that night. I really, really didn't want to go out, and it was nothing against him. It was just that I had gone out each of the last three nights, and that included New Year's Eve, and that last vodka and cranberry was a mistake. All I wanted was to spend an evening on the couch with Mr. Darcy, and I didn't even want company. So I told him it was "movie night," which he interpreted to mean that I was going out to the movies, and told me to "have fun at the movies."

Sunday: He texted me to ask how the movie was and what did I see?

Monday: "How's your day going?" I told him it was going "great" (which is was) and asked about his. He said it was ok, but still going. Then, in a separate text, he told me that he gets off work at 8. I'm not sure if I was supposed to suggest that we get together then, but I didn't. I had work to do that night anyway, and it shouldn't be my job.

Tuesday: I thought maybe he had given up, and even said so to my roommate. Spoke too soon, though, as he sent me a text in the evening asking me "How's your week going?" Not very original. Still, I felt obliged to respond, and apparently one of my responses was witty, because he included the acronym LMFAO (which a quick google search told me stands for "laughing my fucking ass off"). I consulted Fenella who told me that anyone who uses that acronym is a definite NO and that as a rule, if I have to google it, I should just cross them off my list.

It is now 10:05 on Wednesday, and so far, no text. I'm getting a bit tired of the texting game. If you want to go out again, man up and call. If not, don't bother texting. In the meantime, I'm losing interest.

Oops...I'm doing it again!

I'm screwed.

Since my random yet highly enjoyable night out with WW last Thursday I've been thinking a lot about him. In fact I haven't thought about much else. Herein lies my problem...

I do this every time. Every time I meet a guy I obsess about what happened and more worryingly, what may happen. NB: I don't do this with random guys I meet in pubs, it's with guys I actually know and there haven't been that many! But it invariably leads to disappointment, embarrassment and with a little bit of regret thrown in for good measure. So after I broke up with Fergus I made a mid-year resolution- no longer was I going to do any chasing, I was going to be a cool, aloof ice queen- they could chase me. No more drunken texts = no more embarrassment. And so far I've been pretty good on this score with WW. I've only text him once asking him to bring me back a snowglobe from Australia (you don't ask, you don't get.) So now it's just the disappointment factor to contend with and I can feel it fast approaching because I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that I might like him, like really like him.

I totally did not see this coming. At all. I was expecting the evening to be a one drink, possibly awkward, affair. Nothing more. When I was skyping with Vi the night before I was due to meet him, I responded with an incredulous 'is he?' when Vi said she thought he was cute.

And then I met him at the station. The first thing I thought when I saw him was 'damn he's cute.' And it went downhill from there. Below is a list of why WW is the nicest guy I've met in a really, really long time.

* He paid for everything, even though I offered. Now I'm all for paying my way but no guy has ever payed for everything the first time we've met up. In fact, I have a cringe worthy recollection of having lunch with Fergus the first time. The lunch cost S/.8 each, that's roughly £2.30, which is roughly $3. He paid his half and then pushed the bill towards me. $3!! Why I didn't see the warning signs then I'll never know.
* He didn't laugh like most guys do when I said that I played soccer when I was a kid and that I wasn't bad at it. He also didn't laugh when I said I've been thinking of taking it up again. In fact, he encouraged me. So much so that he said he was going to call a couple of his friends who run ladies soccer clubs.
*He didn't laugh or mock when I talked about my job. He listened. I work for the UK's largest charity which works towards combating isolation and neglect against older people. Most people don't understand why I work for a charity. They find it even stranger when I get a bit passionate and start quoting statistics at them. He didn't.
* When we were ordering dinner (that he paid for) he ordered pheasant. I said that I had never eaten pheasant. He said that I could try some of his. When the dinner arrived he cut a decent chunk of it and put it on my plate. How many guys share their food?!
* He opened doors for me. I like guys that do that.
* The weather was really bad that night. He switched places with me so that he was watching close to the kerb- thus meaning he was way more likely than me to get splashed with slush and gunk. Then when the wind was getting really bad he insisted I walk behind him so as to protect me from the wind.
*He's a great kisser.

Now maybe these seem like trivial things. Maybe I'm just not used to guys being nice to me. Maybe I'm making mountains out of molehills. But I'm still pretty sure that I like him.

But as I stated before, I think this is all going to end in disappointment. Reasons being:

*He's older than me. 8 years older. This doesn't bother me, I like older men and for all I know it might not bother him. But I'm 23 and he's 31, he might have an issue with it.
* I've no idea of his current 'love life status'. Has he just got out of a serious relationship? Is he casually seeing anyone? Without this information it makes the situation even harder to judge.
* I saw him last week. And he's away for 2 1/2 weeks over New Years. That's along time until the possibility of seeing him again, which means it's a long time for him to forget about me.
*I haven't heard from him since I text him asking him to get me a snowglobe. No contact from a guy who you kissed is never a good sign!

So I'm not feeling too confident, and a big helping of disappointment is not what you want for Christmas!

However, I'm trying to look on the positive side of things. At least I finally have a guy to blog about who isn't my ex. And I may get a snowglobe out of all of this (that sounds a bit dodgy, it's not.) Happy Holidays!

The curse of the drunk dial

A couple of weeks ago I drank far too much wine. Well maybe it wasn't too much wine but it was too much to drink when all I had eaten that day was a bagel. Smart, Fenella, real smart. So there I am, in a pub having a fully animated conversation with my friend when I got the stupid idea to ring my ex-boyfriend. Don't worry, not ex-boyfriend Fergus but my other ex-boyfriend. We broke up over two years ago, it was amicable and I haven't really thought about him, I certainly don't miss him. So why the decision to call him? Let's blame the wine.

As if drunk dialling my ex wasn't bad enough, it wasn't just a five minute catch up conversation it was at least 20 minutes. The actual amount of time is a little hazy because of, well you know, the wine. And as if a 20 minute conversation wasn't bad enough, the topics of conversation were even worse because of, well you know, the wine. The next morning I text him just to apologise for ringing him when he kindly informed me of what we actually talked about. I thought it was about interviews and jobs. But no. I told him things I should not have told him, mainly things about Fergus. I may have also said that he's good looking. (He is good looking, but I didn't need to tell him that). And there were other things, but I would like to retain some of my dignity let's not go there.

Yes it was a stupid thing to do and yes it was embarassing. But the worst of it is that now my ex keeps contacting me. I've told him to please stop contacting me so much, and that I honestly have no feelings towards him whatsoever. But he's still texting. I hate cell phones sometimes.

The moral of this story? Don't drink when all you've had to eat is a bagel. And if you do, leave your cell phone at home.