Elwood turns 28 a.k.a breaking the rules

Today I turned 28.

I don't feel twenty eight at all. I feel like I'm still a young guy, not close to 30. When my brother was 26, he got married. When I was 26, I was dressing up as a barbarian for a Medieval party.

I'm sure its related to the experience I've had in life. I started a lot of things late, including dating. However, every year (or lately, I guess i can even say day) I feel that I'm getting better, more relaxed at it.

Last night I went out to celebrate my birthday with some friends. Knowing a lot of people and not really having a key group of friends anymore (many have move away), I just invited a whole bunch of people and ended up with a group of about 10 friends, most not knowing each other.

We started at my apartment, then went to a bar and ended up at this dance party. Not any dance party though. It was Silent Disco! What is silent disco? it was a room full of people dancing to music. Except, instead of the music being pumped through very loud speakers, it was supplied through giant headphones that everyone wore. That meant that the room itself was quite silent.

I had fun hanging out and was glad to see a lot of my friends but I was pretty exhausted from what I had done the night before. Believe you me, what i did the night before was a ton of fun but it did hinder on my being fully awake and energetic for my birthday. I am willing to say that it was almost worth it.

What is it that made me so tired to celebrate my own birthday? Well I'll tell you.

I had been messaging back and forth a girl I met on OK! Cupid for a bit and we had arranged to meet up for "coffee and baileys" Friday evening. Lets call her Glasses (since she has some pretty funky glasses). I arrived at the coffee shop first but when she arrived, we ended up having dinner with our coffee since we were both starving.

The meal was going fine. We had a lot to talk about. I accidentally mentioned i was reading a book and she wanted to know what it was but I didn't want to tell her and then she insisted I did. So probably breaking the first rule, I showed her that I was reading "How to Succeed with Women" but informed her I was reading it as a joke and not to take it seriously. It ended up being a great idea that I showed her that because it quickly became an inside joke between us the whole night.

From the beginning of reading the book I told myself i wouldn't' take it seriously but I was already breaking rules, they insist on a first date you only spend between 45 - 60 minutes and lead it up to a second date. Well, I was breaking that rule by a lot

After coffee we ended going for some beer at a nice terrace. Then after having shared a pitcher (and don't forget our strongly alcoholic coffees from the coffee shop), we headed out towards the direction we both lived.

I had heard about the Silent Disco and had mentioned it to Glasses earlier on in the date but then we found out when I bumped into a friend, that it only started at 12am and it was 20$ to get in.

At 11:45, we happened to walk by the building that was housing the party and I convinced Glasses to come in with me for a second and found out what Silent Disco was all about. Turned out it started at 11:30pm, so there were already people there, and the price was only 5$!

We went in and it was tons of fun. There was a bar, a bunch of people dancing and really fun music. We were there for a couple of hours and I realized that Glasses was dancing pretty close to me. I didn't feel comfortable just grabbing her and grinding but I did get the impression that she wanted to be close to me.

At one point I grabbed her hand so we could dance to a song but she let go after a couple of seconds saying she gets uncomfortable dancing with someone. I didn't' freak out or feel stupid, and totally took that in stride.

After a couple of drink and after being there for a couple of hours, our hands ended up touching and then locking, that when I decided to move in even closer and kissed her. It was really interesting making out at a party with really big headphone on our heads. Without the music, it was really just too people kissing in front of strangers in a room. The headphones were really bulky so we kept hitting each other with them.

After a short while we decided to leave.

I walked her to the point where we would have to split up to head to our respective apartments and we made out some more. I don't get it but I wasn't scared at all! I felt really calm and confident that she was into me, and I into her and that was all I needed.

I whispered in her ear if I could at least walk her home. She agreed. I swear that when I said that my true intentions were not to go sleep with her. I genuinely just wanted to walk her home to make sure she got home safe and also to see, curiously, what would happen next.

On the walk there she told me that I could come up but she wouldn't sleep with me. I told her she got me all wrong and that she didn't know me well, and that that wasn't my intention at all.

We got to her place and she let me in.

End of Part 1

There is a lot more I want to talk about my Friday night experience, but it's late so you'll have to come and check up for part 2 sometime soon.