It was a blacktie event, so we all had to dress up in suits and everything. Second time ever that I've actually looked forward to an event where I wore a suit. The first was the Blue and White ball that was my high school's version of a prom (or at least, what it's supposed to be - single-sex schools can be weird in that). This time, I wore a proper suit, complete with bow-tie, not some weird, Indian politician-style suit like I did last time. Since it was a 007 theme, I decided to go pseudo-dressed as Emilio Largo, the villain from Thunderball. So I grabbed an eyepatch. In retrospect, I should have watched the movie earlier so I knew to get a white jacket instead of a black one.
Needless to say, I was ousted by another fellow going even further and coming dressed as Ernst Blofeld, complete with make-up scar and fake cat glued to his arm. He'd stroll around and ask people to stroke his pussy :S
A little bit of explaining here - back in high school, I joined with the "high achievers" clique of my year - we'd hang around in front of the library and make jokes about videogames and other pop culture things, when we weren't discussing computer hardware. One member, who shall remain nameless, was one of those people who everyone else disliked because they were a) a pretentious snob, b) incredibly obnoxious, or c) absolutely full of themselves. We formed our own little group, our name jokingly taken from something he'd called us - Elitist Academic Pricks. So hence, we were the EAP.
The EAP'ers that stayed in Adelaide, minus Ian, who sadly couldn't be with us tonight.
I'd been listening to a lot of "theory" on getting girls recently, mostly Dave DeAngelo's work. I must say it all sounds great in theory, but it seems that it all melts away once you get out and start talking to girls. I dunno, maybe it's the way he does it or something. But I digress. I came in with one objective: to get one girl's contact details, be it a number or an email.
The night started well enough. I met my friend Jeff, who was back from Queensland for a few months and at the party with his girlfriend Juls, as well as some nice girls - one a really nice girl who was one of Rob's friends from Flinders. I went to get a drink and by the time I got back to chat to her, she had wandered off to chat to what must have been other Flinders law friends. Note to self: if leaving her, ALWAYS try to get her contact details. Then I met a nice girl I had met at one of Rob's previous dos, Kat, who's doing a film course of some sort at Uni SA city west, between juggling four jobs.
Pimp shot! The blonde is Jeff's girlfriend Juls, and the dark-haired girl is Kat. My brother says that I look quite the player with the eyepatch and suit.
I also met a nice, charming Chinese girl (I'll call her J) who as a good friend of Rob's. Unfortunately, I think I screwed over my chances with her when I made it known that I thought she had, at some point, been Rob's girlfriend. She regarded Rob as a bit pompous, and made it clear that she could never get with him. However, she seemed to like Henry a lot, as I saw them talking a lot during the night.
J, Rob, and me. When I asked for a photo with her, she wanted the birthday boy in as well. I swear, if I showed someone this photo, probably one of the first things they'd assume is that J was Rob's girlfriend.
Jeff, his girlfriend Juls, and me. Note how the player image is totally ruined with the addition of glasses. However, on the upside, my vision is much better. I swear I should have got contacts before this event. Maybe when I have money I'll get contacts for going out.
After about an hour of mingling with friends and family of the birthday boy (mostly spent talking to Kat and Juls), dinner was soon served at the back.
A full-on, proper blueblood affair. There was red and white wine on the tables, more than one set of cutlery, and a string quartet playing. The food was excellent, although I seem to be continuing to suffer bad luck in the steak/large piece of meat department, getting stringy meat after the first two pieces. Sadly, the EAP crew were separated across two tables - I was sitting with Jon, Jeff, and Juls.
Here we have Jeff pouring some wine. Or was it cham-pagen (Zat Brannigan ftw ^_^)? I don't know why I took this shot, just that I felt like doing it and that it would be amusing in some way that's now forgotten to me.
Jeff, having been quite the choir-boy while we were in high school (sorry to you if you're reading this, Jeff - no offence intended) came up to sing to the accompaniment of the string quartet, and got us to sing what I was later told was (I think) the Welsh national anthem, done to Gustav Holst's Jupiter, from what Jon tells me. The string quartet even played "Happy Birthday," which was quite amusing. And then Jeff led the "Hip hip, HOORAY!" as well. He was called up again to sing happy birthday with the Rob and Rob's brother Tim, this time to no accompaniment, except the drunken singing of other partygoers.
Rob's brother Tim on the left, Jeff in what I think is a tweed jacket in the middle, and Rob in the white jacketed suit on the right, all singing Happy Birthday.
The speeches were quite amusing, especially the mother of the birthday boy going on about "acts of lust." Still, the speeches made me think of what I had done. But I'll leave that introspection for a different entry.
Finally, we came to the last act of the party - the casino! On each table, at each seat, there was a bag of poker chips. Each table had the task of winning the most money at the backyard roulette table that had been set up. I tried my luck and was moderately successful. Another group raked in a lot, but at the end, the winner, coming from behind, was Tim, brother of the birthday boy. He came in with bags and bags of chips that he'd taken from tables whose occupants had forgotten to take the chips from, resulting in winning with roughly 930 chips, followed by 631 chips and then my table at a modest 300 or so chips.
A little before I left, at about 12:30am Sunday morning, I met this friendly old fellow who was an old scholar of St Peters, the high school where I went, and went on to sing praises for the school. He then gave me some strange words - I'd come to value the time spent in high school rather than the education I got there when I grew older.
But did I come away with any girls' contact details? I did accomplish what I set out to do, but barely - one e-mail address. Let's hope I can build from there.
1 comment:
Alex, no one likes anyone and I will personally gut you if you mention stuff like that again.
As for Bob, you are a freak :P I had to edit every one of those photos to get rid of those blood red eyes.
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