23 Attempts at Love

Chapter 4: The Northern Man with a Tan

I met the Northern Man with a Tan on a night out in December of the year I turned 18. I'd gone out with two of my friends (the only two other girls I was friends with who had their birthdays pre-Christmas) and we'd gone to a bar. By this point in time I'd discovered that alcohol wasn't all bad, and was doing tropical-fruit-flavoured shots in an almost-empty underground bar at nearly 1am when the Northern Man quite literally walked into me.

He was drunk, I was drunk. He had two friends, so did I. His friend Tom and my friend Clara hit it off and started chatting, leaving the four of us remaining to chat idly between us until someone suggested moving to a club.

It was one of my first nights out, so I was slathered in fake tan, fake eyelashes and had lipstick dribbling down the sides of my mouth from where I'd applied it drunkenly in the toilets of the bar before we left. I was wearing 6-inch heels I still can't walk in and looked like Bambi's disabled sister making my way out of the bar and through the streets.

Clara and Tom had wandered off ahead "to get entrance sorted", leaving my remaining friend Lissy and Tom's two friends to help me get upright enough to be allowed in.

"She's too drunk." The security guard said, pointing at me. Lissy started to agree, but I pulled myself upright, tripped over the step and then shouted at him from the floor:

"No I'm not! I've got bad knees! There's a difference!" I started pointing at my feet in the heels, declaring that if I took them off then I would be able to walk fine, but the patriarchal society we lived in said that women were supposed to wear heels and that loads of clubs won't let women in if they're wearing trainers even though men were allowed to and it wasn't fair because it was discriminatory...

They let me in. They shouldn't have: I was bladdered.

I woke up the next day at Clara's house with makeup smeared all over my face, sticky hands from spilling drinks down myself and matted hair. Lissy had brought us both cups of tea, but I couldn't even move I felt so awful. Tropical fruit shots are lethal for fresh-faced 18-year-olds.

"Did you get Tom's number last night?" I asked Clara, who smiled coyly.

"He asked for mine! He hasn't texted me yet but he probably will when he's recovered from the hangover. He said the lads were staying at his so he might wait until they've gone home too." She said all of this with the smug expression of someone who was particularly pleased with themselves about their previous night's conquest.

"What about you and that friend of his?" Lissy asked me, forcing me to sit up and drink the tea. I took a sip, frowned and looked at him quizzically.

"What friend?" I asked. My memories of the previous night were a mess of bad choices, dad-dancing and cheesy chips.

"Tom's friend!" Clara piped up, grinning. "You two seemed like you were getting on well. You were dancing with him for ages!"

"Was I?" I honestly couldn't remember dancing with anyone in particular. I couldn't even really picture who they were talking about. I shrugged.

Around midday Clara's phone pinged with a text and Lissy grabbed it.

"You've got a text from an unknown number!" She said, grinning and throwing the phone to Clara, who knew she couldn't get away without telling us exactly what Tom had said.

"Oh my god, hope your hangover is as bad as ours is haha" Clara read out. So it started for her: the first boy she'd ever "spoken to". She started her own version of the dating-tango: a twisted, ever-changing and complex routine which might end up in a relationship. Each step and exchanged step a thrilling whirl of exhilaration in the mind of a teenager entering the dating scene for the first time. My shy friend was beginning to blossom.