(This is a true New Year's Eve story
!!)
I was in my early 20s and in a pub in Coventry at midnight, New Year's Eve. A young woman did the grabbing me thing and I did the not-really-totally-smitten-but-slightly-interested-due-to-drinking-too-much thing. After all the party poppers went off and the chimes finished we got talking. Eventually the landlord wanted to close the pub so we headed out into the cold.
She: "Do you want to walk me home?"
Me: [
Thinks - it's bloody cold, but there are some pretty drunken people about. Perhaps I ought to make sure that she gets home in one piece?] "Er, where do you live?"
She: "Binley."
[3 miles out of the city centre, on the opposite side of the city to where I lived]
Me: [
Thinks - damn, it will take me hours to walk 3 miles there, 3 miles back, and then 2 miles home] "I tell you what - I'll walk halfway back with you and get you safely away from all these drunks, then I'll head for home."
So we set off. It took ages because we'd had too much to drink.
Me: "Don't you have a boyfriend?"
She: "Nah, I finished with him again last week!"
Me: "Again?"
She: "Yeah, he used to beat me up so I'd finish with him but I kept having him back because he was okay when he was straight."
Me: "Er,
right..."
She: "But then I bought him a leather coat for his birthday and it cost me sixty quid; he only went and sold it to pay for heroin!"
Me: "Jeez, what were you doing with someone like that! How did you come to pick someone like that for a boyfriend?"
She: "He picked me."
Me: "What, like -
Hi - I'm a junkie - do you wanna go out with me?"
She: "No. He was on the same bus as me and he got off at my stop and followed me down the road. Then he dragged me into an alley and raped me..."
Me: ................
She: "... but he was really sorry afterwards and started crying so I kinda felt sorry for him so I gave him a hug...."
Me: ................
!
She: "... and then he asked me out!"
Me: ................
!
We stopped walking. I was completely astounded by what she had just told me.
Me: "Listen, I have to go home now. I hope you get back okay - it's not that far!"
At which, I turned and started to hurry away.
'How the other half live', eh?
I heard a little voice in the distance behind me...
She: "When will I see you again?"
Yeah right...
'When will we share precious moments?' I started running...
And that's an example of why I'm sat in by myself on New Year's Eve rather than getting pissed in a pub, folks!