DulFriendDrums

One should never brag that one has invited 359 women to dinner, because one then has to, shame-faced and balloon-popped, admit that to said dinner, only two women came.

I liked one of them, Gemma. The other, I could have taken or left. Preferably left. She made a big fuss about carbs and, frankly, it was the kind of fuss she should have made before reaching 15stone. It’s too late love, you’re fat, now eat your pasta and be done.

I haven’t seen carbs girl again, but Gemma and I have become part of a new crew, a new posse, a gang, a gathering. We get together and tear up the neighbourhood in our sooped up Renault Cleo’s, smoking joints and listening to garage.

Oh no, wait, sorry, I’m not 16 anymore. We’ve joined a book club.

I know. What is the world coming to. We’re calling it cake club, which makes it more appealing and cool, right? But we’re still going to read a book between monthly meets. I hosted the first meet and as it was in December I served steaming hot mulled wine, with carrot cake and (yes, and) chocolate banana bread. Well, I wanted them all to like me.

While on my merry escapades to make more friends in 2009, I also attended a W.I meeting.

Luckily for me, it was creative writing night, and I got to show off the way I put words together. There was one girl there I liked, who I’d see myself getting drunk with down the pub. All this cake / book club, W.I meetings and civilised dinners with strange women, it’s all just a ploy to find someone I can get pissed with. But our night ended and I couldn’t exactly ask for her number without sounding weird, so it was over, my fleeting chance to be friends with someone who wore nice wellington boots.

Oh well. I’m not going back to the W.I because there are too many old people there and I don’t want to learn to knit.

But having signed up to a year’s free membership (due to guilt) with the friendship website, I have to come up with a few more canny ways to lure people out of their comfort zones and into my life. Whilst avoiding cinema trips with Neill.

It’s tough being me. How I long for the care-free days of old, when my phone rang on a Friday afternoon and the possibilities for the weekend were endless. I think I’m having a mid-20s crisis. I yearn for my youth, but simultaneously feel more at ease pottering about my kitchen than going on a bender. I think it’s because I’m a gemini. Split personality. I am two people. I am the party. I am the lame excuse to stay in. And in fitting two people’s thoughts into my one head, I am busy, tired, and, perhaps, in need of medical attention.