Being of a verbose and friendly disposition I often find myself welcoming visitors to our Church at the local pub after the evening service. Historically I have always relied heavily on getting good eye contact to mask my inability to remember anyone's name. However, on this cold October's night a full moon and a girl called Lisa ensured I had no such problem.
The pub will go unmentioned as its credentials are poor and it has since closed, its job accomplished. There was about 20 of us that night, chatting loudly by the bar getting to know each other and swapping backgrounds. I remember talking with a German city worker, a student of classical guitars and a trainee opera singer before I met a rather intriguing Texan… I mean American… I mean American/Colombian! She was wearing a black beret and a T'shirt with lines of music printed on the front. Seeing no need in reinventing the wheel I enlisted the help of my new found friends and got them both to hum her T'shirt to her – much to her amusement. As I was there to meet new people I felt my job was done and left this newly formed group chatting away.
I may also have been distracted by the American to the right of Lisa who appeared to be wearing clothes with a skull & crossbones design. Fighting to silence the words 'Goth & vampire' from my mind I then had fantastic conversation with 'Briana' and completely forgot about her 'niche' clothing taste. She turned out to be a great friend of Lisa's and the most hysterical drama student.
Later that night I was pulled back into conversation by Jonathan (our photographer) who asked me what was the first thing that came to mind when he said the word 'Colombian'? Seeing the obvious pitfalls in the standard responses, I replied 'fantastic dancers'. This answer appeared to leave poor Jonathan crashed and burning after telling Lisa (an aspiring Colombian), 'cocaine'. Within the next 5 minutes I discovered; Lisa had Colombian parents, loved Salsa, was gorgeous and would be leaving the UK in 6 months time.
For a few months I had been getting together friends to go Salsa dancing every now and then and was always on the look out for new people to keep the numbers up. In the spirit of inclusion (and without any ulterior motive) I took down Brianna & Lisa's emails promising them an invite to our house party and future salsa evenings.
As I was walking across the Waterloo Bridge on my way home I couldn't get Lisa out of my head and started to think that I should ask her on a date. Nothing new there then (you might assume) except for the fact that I don't do dates. As my friends will confirm – that just hasn't been my story. So to find myself feeling completely at peace about asking out an American came as quite a shock.
The following day I wrote her a short email inviting her to dance on Thursday evening.
The pub will go unmentioned as its credentials are poor and it has since closed, its job accomplished. There was about 20 of us that night, chatting loudly by the bar getting to know each other and swapping backgrounds. I remember talking with a German city worker, a student of classical guitars and a trainee opera singer before I met a rather intriguing Texan… I mean American… I mean American/Colombian! She was wearing a black beret and a T'shirt with lines of music printed on the front. Seeing no need in reinventing the wheel I enlisted the help of my new found friends and got them both to hum her T'shirt to her – much to her amusement. As I was there to meet new people I felt my job was done and left this newly formed group chatting away.
