Disco Fever
When I was a teenager, my best friend in high school took it upon himself to set me up on a date with a friend of his, B, from a different school. I got B’s phone number and we spoke a couple of times before he invited me to a local junior’s disco. We both agreed that we would each take a friend along to lessen the initial awkwardness of meeting in person for the first time. I invited the friend who had set us up and he told me he would bring his female friend, N, with him.
The big day arrived, but my best friend phoned in the morning to cancel, saying that he was too ill to go out. I texted B with this news, but he replied telling me not to worry about it, and that N was still coming. So off I went. When I got there, B was waiting outside (I recognized him from the photos that my friend had showed me) and I greeted him. We made some awkward small talk while we waited for N to show up, and then headed inside when she got there. Once we were inside, it was basically impossible to continue a conversation since the music was blaring so loudly.
The three of us found a table, and almost immediately, N dragged B off to dance with her – leaving me sitting by myself with her handbag and his coat. The rest of the night was spent the same way. I watched while she slow danced and grinded up against my date. Eventually, they came back to the table and B tried to ask me a couple of questions about myself, but before I could answer him, N got up and sat down on his lap, throwing her arms around his neck. She stayed there for the next hour, glaring at me while I grew increasingly pissed off with the whole situation.
At about 11pm the Junior’s disco was winding down, and although I’d made arrangements with my parents to be picked up at about midnight, I made some excuses and got the hell out of there. I found out later from my friend that B had told both N and me that this was a date, and that he’d intended it to be a night where he could “compare us properly.” He called a few days later to tell me that he’d picked me and I hung up on him. He never called back.
