I GOT invited to a birthday party tonight and was trying to think of the last time I've had this pleasure. I think it might have been when I was eleven.
I've been out for drinks with people ON their birthday. "Meet in the pub about eight? Yeah, it's John's birthday so it's going to be mental. Nice one. See you then."
But that's not the same as going to a birthday party. With presents and the such.
The young lady (21) who's birthday it was, J, answered the door to her flat in her party dress and welcomed me into the living room where there were already six or seven guests sat around a square coffee table on a couple of sofas. Funny, being a reasonably well-adjusted adult who's supposed to have good communication skills and confidence by way of profession, I still felt that horrible awkwardness as you try to make yourself comfy in a group of strangers. You have to generate sufficient chit-chat so that they don't think you're being quiet and rude, but not launch into a mammoth nerve-induced rant about all and everything that will mark you out as either mental or on drugs.
I think everyone at the party was younger than me too which meant I was probably trying to be over-cool. That's why I just put my umbrella down on the table instead of neatly by the front door. Oh yeah. Got a problem with that, Daddio?
I'd brought a couple of bottles of nice wine and that resulted in me showing my age because everyone else was on either vodka or beer. As a result, there wasn't a functional bottle opener and I ended up having to push the cork in with the end of a wooden spoon. I was just a second away from complaining that this wasn't the correct was to treat a £8 bottle of wine before God himself stuffed the words back down my throat and my cover as a cool person wasn't blown.
It was a fun evening, conversation flowing, everyone getting tipsy. About ten we moved onto Le Bateau on Seel Street. I couldn't believe it was my first time here. I'm an Indie Kid through and though and have for years moaned about the dominance of dance music in Liverpool's nightspots. Here was a salvation though! Two floors of proper music for proper people! You name 'em, they played 'em. The Stones. The Smiths. The Cure. Brilliant.
I got drunk and pulled off the 'drunk's demount'. It's a move all drunk people have performed; many of them are even famous for it. To put the move simply, one moment you're talking to people inside the venue, the next you're out the door and marching home alone. The rule of the manoeuvre however is that you must NEVER tell anyone from your group that you're leaving. Just disappear. It gives you an air of mystery. If you're a boy.
If you're a girl, there'll be a search party made up of all your cold, annoyed mates combing the streets until dawn whilst you're in bed with your mobile switched off. So don't do it. But for the gentleman drinker, it remains the traditional end to a fabulous night.
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