I will commence this by apologising to my Irish girls, who may be reading this, as I took most of this from an email I sent to them last week.
So, I totally attended the birthday drinks for Mr. Adorkable, and, shockingly, things weren't too Awkward (at least not for the whole night).
Don't get me wrong, the Evening got off to an incredibly awkward start, and almost ended before it started! I arrived with one of my lovely work girls, who had graciously agreed to come in spite of the fact that it was on a Tuesday night (shudder). He was already there, surrounded by lots of people from his part of the organisation (mostly girls, I couldn't help but notice). My friend and I approached him and joined the small circle around him, tentatively joining in on the Conversation. It was a bit awkward, there were too many others to attempt to monopolise his time, so we sipped our drinks and joined in where we could. We went to get new drinks and when we came back the circle had closed. We stood awkwardly to the side, and I expressed the desire to sink into the ground.
I guess the problem at this stage was that the people who work in his area are not the friendliest, most inclusive people. The best word to describe them is cliquey. And we were most definitely not part of their clique.I was looked at as if I were an unpleasant piece of mould intruding on their cool party, and that was if they looked at me at all, most of them opted to stare straight through me.
My friend was planning on leaving early, and there was no way I was sticking around by myself, standing like the creepy loner in the corner nursing my cider, cackling maniacally as I tried to involve myself in 'the circle.' She was about to leave, and then something absolutely fantastic happened- my darling best friend showed up! She had mentioned that she might swing by for 'one drink' as she was working in the area. When I saw her my heart positively leapt.
Why, you ask? Aside from the fact that she is my best friend, she is also very adept at infiltrating conversations and making awkwardness go away. This happened almost instantly. We grabbed a drink and within two seconds we were in Mr. Adorkable's circle, talking like we'd all known each other for fifteen years. It was brilliant.
And then it got more brilliant. Two of Mr. Adorkable's friends from outside of work showed up. Then the clique left. And my bestie's man showed up. So it was me with two of my friends, and Mr. Adorkable with two of his. A much more manageable situation, leading to a less awkward outcome.
We eventually left the pub and all went out for dinner, which was a lot of fun (and probably very wise in light of the amount of alcohol we had all consumed). I'm going to summarise the rest of the evening based upon perceived pros and cons (because I am clearly the Queen of overthinking absolutely everything), and then I'm going to give a slightly lengthier account of the very last part of the evening, as I feel that it is cute and amusing, much like Mr. Adorkable himself.
Let's start with the cons, because they are more depressing and it's good to get them out of the way first.
Cons:
- He is still quite awkward with me. My bestie noticed this. She thinks he at least likes me as a friend, but finds the awkwardness strange.
- There was a point in time very early on at the pub when we were left alone together and whenever someone would walk past he would try to pull them into the conversation, which made me think he didn't want to talk to me one on one. This made me sad.
- Later in the evening when we were alone we were having a conversation about the fact that the suburb I live in is where all the beautiful people are from (ie. tanned, blonde, gym bunnies), and where he lives is a bit more hipster cool. I said 'so, yeah, it's all the beautiful people, and then there's me' (meaning, I am not beautiful in that way and do not fit in), and he said 'I know!' (which I took to mean 'you are not beautiful in any way and I can't believe such a place has accepted you).
Now for the pros, because they're fabulous.
Pros:
- His female friend from uni kept asking me all these questions like 'are you married or anything?,' 'do you like anyone at the moment? Maybe someone at work?' and when I told her things about myself (like the fact I lived in Dublin for a year) she already knew them! Interesting...
- He told me he was going to shave his beard off and I told him that I liked it, and he said he was really torn now and unsure if he'd shave or not.
- He also remembered almost every conversation we have ever had, and really specific details from the conversations, like how much I love my stepdad, and the fact that he was Irish.
- He remembered that I loved Jane Austen novels and that we had talked about them at the Christmas party. And he told me that he went and read Pride & Prejudice over Christmas time. And we had a gigantic conversation about Darcy v Wickham (my argument- a Darcy is what my heart wants, but my head realises that more men are likely to be arsehole Wickhams. His argument- I should always hold out for a Darcy).
- He kept looking at me at dinner (we were sitting across from each other) and I kept catching him, and then we would have an awkward stare for 30 seconds, and then I would break the awkward stare by saying something silly.
- He is disgustingly smart, like one of the smartest people I have EVER met. As a result, he is also disgustingly interesting. And funny, of course. And just ridiculously cute.
- He had the option of getting a cab or a Tram from the street we were on at the end of the evening, but he opted to walk with me to the tram stop that I needed to go to instead, and that is where the end of the story kicks in:
We walked together to the tram spot and I sent him a Social Media Message on my way home. The message was following on from a conversation we had at the tram stop. He was waiting with me on my side of the road but had to catch the tram on the other side. I told him it was ok if he wanted to go to the other side, but he said he could run for his tram. I said that made sense, because he has long legs and is probably a fast runner. He laughed at me and told me that I clearly had no sense of sporting prowess if I thought having long legs qualifies you for speed. I told him he would probably beat me in a race. He thought I said he had beat me in a race, and said 'We've never had a race, when have I ever beaten you in a race?' I explained his mistake. We laughed. Then his tram came and he ran for it, and he was running and looked over at me and motioned as if 'see, I'm a terrible runner.' My tram came at the same time, so I got on mine. Then I was drunk, and bored, and forgot that I could listen to my ipod, so I sent him the social media message that said:
I apologise for the drunken, bored tram ride home message but....
I think we should have a race.
You would win, because you have longer legs.
He then sent a text (I had brazenly given him my number in an email a few days prior, but did not yet have his) that said that we would both need to train for the race, and that after seeing him run I probably felt like I was in with a chance, and that he was now having a packing his bag race (he was heading Canberra for four days for a comedy thingo).
I responded that I would need some time to train, and that anyone other than me might feel like they were in with a chance, but that I am not an athlete, but a book nerd and therefore unlikely to win.
Needless to say, I thought this was a pretty successful evening all in all, and the pros outweighed the cons, which is always a good thing.
There have since been some further developments, which I will be sure to share, all in good time. I figure that this one is going to be a slow burn which will either explode into flames one lovely day, or fizzle out, so I'll keep the posts coming, but you'll have to wait a little bit longer.
Have I left you in a complete state of suspense? That's exactly how I feel right now, so I don't feel too bad about it.
Feeling a bit warm and fuzzy,
B. J. Barnes
