What a night!

Just got back from the singles's night, and what a night it was.

Whilst I was making my way to the city on the tube I felt slightly uncomfortable, a lot of women (yes it was mainly women) seemed to be staring at my exposed legs. Sure, it was cold outside, but I was wearing tights underneath my short dress, and nothing was hanging out! I started wondering whether my stay in Cardiff had had more of an impact on me that I had initially thought... Maybe my dress was a bit too short...

I thing that this was the first thing I asked my new single friend  when I finally met her at a pub near the venue. The poor girl had been out all day, half working half dating. At least she was making the most of her single life, and seemed to be doing quite well at it too. We had a quick drink before moving on to the party where we were meeting another of her single friend.

Once at the venue we were met by a rather long queue of woman waiting for the cloakroom... looking around there didn't seem to be many men around. We patiently waited our turn and made our way to our host. This time we were given a badge with our user name on it. Whilst some people paraded with "Brown Bear" on their chest I just went along with my first name, feeling slightly less awkward.  As we made our way down to the bar a long line of men was resting against it, anxiously looking up the stairs for women to come down. The look of those eager men slightly scared me, but with two sidekicks like mine by my side I felt my strength coming back.

Our host gave us each a movie themed card, this was to be our ice-breaker, each movie had 4 cards distributed to 2 women and 2 men, the first four to find each other and make themselves know won a bottle of Champagne, the next "movie quadruplet" won a bottle of wine... By the time we did the speed dating activity both bottle were gone... Never mind. But the night wasn't about winning a bottle of wine/Champagne (even if it would have been nice), the aim of tonight was to get out there, meet more people and see how I was getting on with the Rules. The cards did their job and with my friends help we had quickly met most of the men in the room. Note that I did not, at any point, spoke to a man first (true Rules Girl!), I let the girls do it (may be cheating a bit?).

Through the evening, I tried my best to keep by The Rules, not talking to a man unless he came to talk to me, despite insistence from my two newly made friends (one of which has read the Rules and should know better). After a while my friends got bored, not finding anyone they liked and decided to go. I chose to stay and keep practising the Rules. I spoke to a few men (none of them that I would have chosen to date, but all rather pleasant) I chatted with each for a bit before making my excuses and moving on. There was a couple of men I found rather nice but as none of them seems to notice me, I left them alone and didn't try to hang around them hoping for something to happen.

As a true Cinderella, I had to catch my carriage before it turned into a pumpkin, in this case my last train before the night bus became my only option home. As this gentlemen was chatting to me this girl came up, interrupting us, and made it clear she liked him, a few minutes later her and her friend let him know that they were leaving. He quickly made his excuses, asking me to wait for him, and ran after the two girls. As a true Rules Girl, I myself made my excuses and as I went up the stairs smiled and waved him goodbye.

The Rules worked. He apologised for running on me earlier and asked whether that was the reason I was leaving, I reassured him that this wasn't the case, I had just noticed the time after he left and realised that I needed to run to catch my train home. He then slipped a piece of paper in my hand and just said: "I hope I am not being too forward, but this my number. I'd like you to call me sometime." I smiled and left.

I made my way to the tube station with the 2 girls he had been chatting to earlier and made 2 new single friends. They got out a few stop before mine making their way to another party. As I sat on my own reflecting on my night out a group of four Spaniard jumped in. They seemed to be on a weekend out in London. I got up at the next station to get out and heard them making comments about me, just short of wolf whistling. I just whispered "Chicos..." (Boys...), just loud enough for them to hear. They realised I spoke a bit of Spanish and as I walked out I heard "Muy Guapa!" (Very Pretty!). The last time that a group of Spaniard said that for my benefit I was 17, an exchange student near Madrid, walking down the corridors of my Spanish exchange High School. It took me back and made me feel a million dollars!

There is nothing like it to keep you smile for the rest of the week :-)