An Outlet: Part 7

22 June, 2019.

I had a nice day today.

Deborah had tickets to a Vir Das stand up comedy show and asked if I'd like to come along. I've never been to a show like this so even though I knew the tickets would be expensive, I agreed.

What was interesting about this invitation was that Nigel was also coming. Now if I haven't mentioned this before, the three of us used to be in the same friendship circle back in junior college but I wasn't really close to either of them, especially Deborah. In fact, I don't even remember having any one on one conversations with her except this one awkward time.

Nigel, Deborah and Paloma used to be pretty close and the first two were even closer. But then after Deborah's birthday incident in 2017, the dynamics changed and Nigel and Paloma become almost inseparable. I have always been close to Paloma and it was again due to her that I started meeting Nigel as well (during her house warming ceremony or her birthday celebrations). I had never felt unwelcomed by Nigel so we got along pretty well overtime. I guess my personal transformation had a role to play in it too.

Anyways, Deborah and I (unknowingly) re-started our friendship after we ended up in the same friend circle in senior college as well. And that friendship grew. We went from being sorta forced to be around one another to actually having a fun time together. But it was an implied rule that we won't talk much about our junior college. Atleast I strictly avoided that topic altogether.

Nigel is still very much in contact with Deborah. They've hung out multiple times. Which is why she knew that I've hung out Paloma and Nigel too, even though I haven't told her anything. Obviously she's seen us interact at her parties.

But the three of us have never ever hung out before. A few years ago, that would've been just plain odd. But now, since I've gotten to know more about the two seperately, I was determined not to make this meet awkward.

And then came another person.

So there's this other guy who was also in "our" junior college friend circle. I was never close to him too. In fact this guy and the three previously mentioned individuals kept having "teasing battles" as I like to call it and even had a WhatsApp group chat because of it (two main reasons why I felt out back then). He was and is still very close to Deborah and... how do I explain it... the two of them together have this sly streak and I swore never to hang out with just them, especially after Deborah's 2017 birthday.

The venue for today's show was in this guy's area and Deborah and him have this agreement (?) that they'll try and meet whenever they are near each other's residence.

And that's what happened today. Deborah called me up and told me that this guy would be coming, but only for our pre show dessert plan.

I don't even remember being around these three in junior college without Paloma. Why? Because that's never happened! Now I had no choice but to make this work.

I met up with Nigel near the desired station and we went to the dessert place together. To be honest, the main reason why I was positive about today was that I've become pretty comfortable around Nigel.

The other two also arrived and hey, it wasn't that awkward! In fact, I think it went well! The topics kept on flowing and everyone had something to say. Deborah started with her job post our exams so she spoke about that, the other guy spoke about his college. Nigel and I were the ones with the questions. The food was sub par but I was so glad things went much better than imagined.

The guy left after directing us to the auditorium. This is the same auditorium where we used to have our school annual day shows so I was filled with heavy nostalgia. Everything looked pretty much the same so I had an amazing time recalling all the incidents that took place during the annual days. I haven't thought about school life (especially primary grade) in a long long time and this place brought back a lot of memories. I was so happy!

Initially we found ourselves in the wrong seats and after getting to the correct ones, the show began. It was hilarious! I haven't been to any comedy show before but Vir Das  is definitely very witty. There were punchlines after punchlines and I couldn't stop laughing. He involved the front row audience as well which made it even more interesting. I wonder how much those front seats costed because we were seated at towards the back and apparently those were the "cheap seats". Wut?!

Anyways, the show wrapped up in about 2 hours. Deborah wanted to leave because she had a family function to attend. But Nigel and I convinced her to have some ice cream before that. She bought her cone and left while Nigel and I spoke. After finishing our ice cream, we decided to roam around the area for a while until we reached his new apartment. They haven't shifted in yet so we could only go up to the terrace and the gym.

We roamed around a bit more and our conversation kept on getting deep. Nigel is a people person and you could say that I'm on the opposite side. We have slightly different views in some matters and it felt nice to discuss those.

We ultimately landed up near a station and that's where we decided to part ways. It was around 7:30PM by the time I reached my area. Uncle D had come over for some drinks (mom had gone out with her school friends) and Alex had gone out to get some food for them so I asked him to pick me up on his way. I visited a nearby store and picked up some items while waiting for Alex to reach me.

We ordered some wok once we were back home and yep, that's all for today.