When Shoes Shuffled His Feet

So, our dinner party with GBF was fantastic - way better than expected! I didn't have high hopes initially, as when Eyes enquired of Shoes last night whether he was coming to gym, Shoes replied that we were going to the gay guys for dinner and proceeded to sigh and huff like the big bad wolf. We left our flat and I had to stop halfway to go back for Shoes' lip that was dragging along behind us.

I was feeling surprisingly at ease in the beginning. Usually, I am so aware of Shoes' resentment at being dragged along, that I tend to spend most of my time watching him out the corner of my eye for signs of panic / excessive drinking / glaring shyness (which is often misconstrued as an air of disinterest), and frantically trying to bail him out of awkward situations. The first and most welcome icebreaker was Luna, GBF's 2 year old staffie puppy. I had already heard everything about Luna, from her eating and sleeping habits to what she got for her birthday (a £100 pound swarovski crystal collar and 2 x £50 fancy plastic food bowls), but I had yet to meet her. Shoes' dream dog is a staffie, and he frequently talks about his longing to own one when we eventually go back home. Luna was the best kind of therapy for this newp event - she provided conversation of mutual interest, she was boisterous and made us laugh, and when there was a lull in talking, GBF made her show off all the tricks she can do. Soon after we got there, D and Zen arrived. They are the other couple I have met through my volunteer work at the RSPCA, and they are absolute gems. Very quickly I realised that something was missing. That sense of constantly being on edge, worrying that Shoes was going to look pointedly at his watch one too many times... it wasn't there!

I've mentioned before how I am a little obssessed by this freebie website where I get free movie tickets and the like. D was the one to first tell me about this, and I knew she and Zen shared my love of cutting corners in entertainment costs. What I didn't know is that these people are professionals. They could write a book on how to get things for free. Movie tickets and mini samples? Pah, they've got two laptops, a tv and even a weekend away! I won't go into the how to right now, except to say that it's all legit and there's no theft involved, but suffice it to say, once the conversation turned to this topic and we realised just how much they take the piss, we were all in stitches for the rest of the evening.

Shoes appeared to be genuinely comfortable, and not once did I need to bail him out of a social faux pas. We'd agreed on an exit time before we came - 10pm. Finally, at 11:15pm, Shoes looked at his watch and gave me the eyes. I was nothing short of relieved; the wine and rich food had made me sleepy, and I could quite happily have left half an hour before!

As we all said goodnight and made promises to hook up again in the future, Shoes and I started in the direction of our flat and I asked him the all important question: "That wasn't so bad, was it?" His reply? "Not at all, it was cool. They are actually very cool people." And that, right there, is the highest compliment that Shoes can give. :-)

Crowded House

You know you've still got it when you're 27 and you get asked for ID when buying wine in Sainsbury's. Yes, that really happened to me this morning, and I am still absurdly pleased about it.

I'm pretty sure from the way she was staring puzzledly at it that the cashier was unfamiliar with the South African drivers license. I could feel her rising panic as she scrutinised my card, flipping it over and back again, looking for that elusive proof that I was of age. I helpfully pointed out the date with a perfectly manicured fingernail - do 17 year olds even have perfectly manicured fingernails? - and enunciated clearly "1980", but she still scowled at me suspisciously. I could practically hear her thoughts: Is this a trick? Is this a fake ID I'm supposed to recognise and instantly alert my superior to? It didn't help that while she was struggling with her sense of morality and power, I was standing there with an inane grin on my face. It's no wonder she was reluctant to give in. We had a brief face-off - she stared me down while my inane grin widened to a moronic one, and finally she conceded. The battle was over. I had won my prize. Well, won the opportunity to pay a fiver for a bottle of wine, anyway.

The wine is for an early Christmas dinner that Shoes and I are attending tonight. GBF, who's been off my radar for a couple of weeks (I must have really scared him at our last drunken meeting) invited us along with another couple who we've met through our RSPCA work. I'm excited; Shoes, not so much. The thing about my boyfriend is that he is the most delightful person once you get to know him; around his friends he is relaxed, witty, uninhibited and positively sparkling in Christmas-tree-light style. It's the getting to know him part that presents problems for other people.

He's not unfriendly by any means; he just has an enormous psychological block against meeting new people. He's the person at the party who is so terrified by the thought of being in a crowd of people he doesn't know that he's apt to drink too enthusiastically too quickly for Dutch courage, and then needs to go home early (come to think of it, this is quite possibly a deliberate ploy). He's the guy for whom small talk is worse than the Bokke losing to England. He's said before he'd rather have no new friends for the rest of his life than suffer the agony of "So, what do you do?" conversations one more time. I refuse to take this seriously though, because even if he does mean it, I'm not about to let him hide in his cave so I am continuously forced to present myself as the swinging singleton whenever there's a dinner party/wedding/work function for Lopz plus one. I have made it my mission in life to help him get over his crippling phobia of "newps" (new people) by dragging him to various events where he knows no-one. This is for his own good, and one day when his sparkling repartee is the coveted centrepiece at every party in the neighbourhood, he will make a heartfelt speech in front of a crowd of VIPs about how he could never have done it withouth me. I only have his best interests at heart. Besides which, I have run out of excuses for reason why he is not with me at newp events. "Oh, he's having a guys' night out tonight" or "The footie's on, and he is just SO sports mad, ha ha *cough cough*" are no longer cutting it, and I have to deal with the looks of pity shot my way throughout the rest of evening. "Shame, they're obviously going through a rough patch" is what kinder half are thinking, while the others clearly snipe under their breath, "Boyfriend? Then why haven't we seen him in seven years; she's actually sad enough to make him up."

I am putting a stop to this right now. I see tonight as another opportunity to show him that the rest of the world does not bite; that in fact, there are some very pleasant people out there just dying to be his mates. The fact that he sees it as a form of slow torture is irrelevant - in the long run, this will only serve the greater good of coupledom.