Bit by the British Love Bug

Just a quick clarification about the title of my last blog post. My mom, bless her aging heart, said the title “Tired of London, Tired of Life” sounded a touch depressing. It’s actually a paraphrase of a quote from Samuel Johnson: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” It’s about the glamor of London, not my own personal exhaustion that I felt by the end of that weekend.

Moving on, Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! I’m very sorry that I haven’t written anything for a little while (I know it’s been killing

Julia and I one night we went out to dinner, not really related to this post, but we're adorable.

you all inside). Honestly, it has just been a little quiet around here. But, in honor of it being, you know, the day of love and everything, I’m going to tell you a true story of budding love that has been going on here! And I’m going to do it without the explicit permission of the person who stars in it!

So, last Friday night, four of us went out to a club called Fez. In line for the club (or, as the British call it, “queuing up.” The Brits love queues.), we met some funny people, a couple of whom would probably fail the breathalyzer test, and we had some interesting/confusing/amusing conversation. But we separated from them when we got into the club (remember them, they’re important to the story). While waiting for our friend to get his drink from the bar, Angelina (name changed for obvious reasons) said to me, “Oh my gosh, Danielle, look at that guy over there, the tall, blonde one. I want to dance with him.” And because I was in a silly mood (translation: slightly tipsy), I pointed at him and went, “That guy?” He saw me, saw her, they locked eyes, bada bing, bada boom, ladies and gentlemen we have the first look.

The first time we went out to Fez

For awhile the four of us danced together, which was a ton of fun. We had gone to that club before, and the music had been really horrible. But Friday nights are Indie Rock nights, so we knew and could jam out to almost all of the songs. Then our guy friend left to go to the bathroom, leaving me, Angelina, and our awesome friend Hannah (name not changed because she’s awesome). All of a sudden, Angelina saw someone motioning her over and started dancing with Tall Blonde Guy (the dance). Hannah and I just kind of stared at her and then at each other. Then we saw Queue Guy (guy we met in line), who was with Tall Blonde Guy as well and some others, motioning us over, too. So we started dancing with them, which was pretty fun, especially Queue Guy because he kept booty bumping me into his friend who looked like the lead singer of Bastille (look them up and be prepared to fall in love).

For a variety of reasons, we ended up leaving relatively soon after. Angelina didn’t want to leave because she was having a very good time dancing with Tall Blonde Guy. But we dragged her away, not wanting to leave anyone behind, and she didn’t get the chance to get his number, this completing part three of any good love story: the abrupt departure. Angelina was pretty bummed about leaving, thinking she would probably never see this guy again, though she caught his name: Brad (name changed so that I could write Brangelina).

But Fate was not done with this story, no sirree. While Angelina was shopping in designer stores like Primark the next day, she ran into Queue Guy—aka Ash (I now realize that I am a horrible storyteller as now you will have to remember the actual names of these people halfway through the story). He gave Angelina Brad’s number, and she and Ash made plans to have his friends and her friends hang out a few days later. Angelina was so nervous that she could hardly eat anything for the three days between running into Ash and the night we all met up again. We even made Hannah reschedule her Skype date for this. Thankfully, she texted Brad, who was very sweet and said things like how could he forget her, and he was so glad she didn’t remain the mystery girl, and asked whether she would want to run off into the countryside to have little blonde babies (I may or may not have embellished/completely made up that last one).

On Tuesday night, Angelina, Hannah, me, and another friend went to this bar that had pool and snooker tables (snooker is a game I

Me playing pool very badly

don’t understand involving an over-sized pool table, lots of red balls, and humiliation). The four of us were hanging out when we saw Ash, Brad, and Simon (Bastille Guy) coming towards us. We all exchanged somewhat awkward greetings, since I don’t think there is any documented appropriate way to greet people who you’ve only danced with and never really talked to. This marked the fourth, perhaps lesser known, part of a typical love story: the anxiety-ridden and slightly uncomfortable reunion. We migrated from a machine that asked trivia questions to a snooker table to a pool table. Two more of Brad’s friends, both named Jason, arrived as well and we split into teams for pool. Brad was adorable, giving Angelina, his partner, a lot of help and advice when it was her turn. My partner also offered several gems of advice, such as “try and hit a stripe into the pocket.”

After a few embarrassingly bad games of pool, we finally left, still teasing each other for our weird pronunciations of words (It’s aluminum. You can’t just stick an extra syllable in there so it’s “aluminium”). Brangelina have been texting and flirting ever since. We all have plans to go out again; this time to go bowling. Another activity I am horrifyingly bad at. And they all lived happily ever after. Cue orchestral music, big fireworks that somehow spell out “The End” in cursive, aaaaaand end credits.

I’m incredibly happy that Angelina, who is notorious for losing interest very quickly, has found someone she likes. Admittedly, yes, there are a few snags in this little development, with the limited time we’re here and them living thousands of miles away and the fact I’m still not sure what his natural hair color is. But it’s Valentine’s Day, people. And today’s not a day to be cynical, but to cherish the people you love: family, old friends, crushes, boyfriends, sisters. Being an ocean away from most of my loved ones has truly made me realize their monumental importance in my life. So stick with love, because “life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead” (Oscar Wilde).

Danielle