Sydney - The aftermath of last night

Yo,

If you’ve been actively following and tracking my recent posts about my present trip in Sydney, you’d know that I went out last night in the city. However, I forgot to mention how suddenly one of my acquintances on MSN Messenger messaged me right after I finished my entry from last night. Coincidentally, she is actually in Sydney as well. I thought it was a hoax or a joke but we met up and actually had a good night out on the town. So much for going out just for dinner. Haha

What strikes me as strange was how delicately I treated our conversations. I don’t know whether it was the lack of sleep or just the indifference to her presence whilst we were having a few drinks at V Bar on Liverpool Street but it was oddly difficult to speak to her. We started off well and it was quite a joyous interaction much owing to the fact that we haven’t seen each other close to five years now. A very long time to have not spoken to each other.

We continued talking and laughing and finding out how each have been during the five-year gap of absence. She admitted that she hadn’t done much in those past five years except for the frequent and regular drinking episodes each week with her friends on a weekly basis. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, because really it sounded as if she had been suffering from alcoholism. As we delved further into how our lives have been moving, she added in how she had taken the initiative to strain herself through strenuous gym exercises and activities and also further improve her well-being by reducing her alcohol consumption. I felt glad that she was. Although we weren’t close, there’s something good about hearing people admitting their almost-chronic self-defeating habits and doing something to control it. It’s admirable I guess.

I felt like scrutinising the personal circumstances that caused her to hit the bottle though. Obviously, I couldn’t as it would be largely impolite and out of what we should be talking about. Isn’t alcoholism a remote symptom of depression, though? Maybe it is. I don’t know. From I could tell, she probably had been through quite a bit. Not enough to mentally destroy her but given what was said, possibly enough to mentally weaken her.

I asked her more about life in general and what she was currently doing. The usual stuff. Nothing much really happened out of the ordinary than a mere catch-up, or even a introduction I guess to each other. Five years is quite a stretch to assume what each person has been up to. lol

Once we finished up on our last drips at the bar, we walked outside and decided to take a stroll around the city. Apparently, she didn’t know much about the city which I found to be quite comical as she had lived her for one year and in fact, I knew more about the city than she did. So an ostensible city guide I became!

It was surprisingly much more exciting once we went outside. I think the one thing that I’ve learnt from social interactions is that distractions, even the activity of walking complements the effectiveness of social interactions. When your mind has settled down and you’re stationary, sitting down on bar couches facing the other person, the mind tends to go quiet and is less responsive to stimuli. Whereas, when two or more people are walking, I guess there’s much more sensory information from the environment for people to absorb and it drives the mind, fuelling it. This probably sounds like bullshit but I think that’s how it works.

Regardless, it was a good time - we walked around in anticipation to find any desert shops open (her idea, haha) but to our dismay, none. We walked through The Galleries Victoria and I pointed out all the shops that we’re of good fashion taste. She looked at the stores in awe. It was as if she had just walked into a mall for the first time. I don’t know whether it is commonality but I think women or most, are great at pretending to be sincerely interested in certain objects. I think it’s a good trait. A lot of people will say that being pretentious is an, how should I say, an evil trait and I would disagree, as long as it doesn’t evolve into a pathological, uncontrollable behavioural habit - it think it’s okay. And c’mon - in a world of marketing tricks, pushy salespeople, devious corporate management - it’s something of an asset.

Something that also caught me was the kinesthetic expressions and physical gestures that she made. I understand most women are like this but it’s odd how women can blatantly be touchy-feely and whereas, if men are prone to act similarly, it’s seem as somewhat flirtatious and flagrantly disapproved of. It’s quite ingenious actually, if you really think about it.

Let me explore this. If women display affectionate gestures and playful signs, our first reaction as men is to interpret them. Whether you’re accustomated or not to woman’s physical signs, most men will attempt to break down these little signs into what they actually mean, if of course, they are attracted to this particular woman. I find that strangely clever that these little physical quips exercised by women can have an actual impact on male thought processes. I know that these are generally implicit and that women don’t conjure an intention to confuse men but something that I picked up.

The light touches and bumps that we made together that casually occurred throughout our journey was quite nostalgic to me. I liked recalling those certain days or months of trying to understand a girl that you were interested in and exhaustively analysing everything that you or her did together. Some of the time I was right on the ball in my interpretations, and the other times, wrong. I’d have it no other way. Because if I did - I wouldn’t learn shit if I never failed.

Moving along now. We walked down Market Street and all the way down to Darling Harbour. We slowly walked along the docks and the silence was brilliant. It was absolutely entrancing. The stillness and the placid little ripples through the water as we watched made it a good night. We simply sat down and talked about the future and had a chuckle here and there. Not too long after, we left the docks and I signalled for a cab to take her home.

Ever since the inception of the mentally disabling period of pre-exam study and exam time, I haven’t had a true night out just casually talking to anyone. And to have that last night reminded me of how socially repressed I have been during exams, work and study. There is always a compromise between interests when there are just too many things to deal with. Many people can certainly deal effectively with many tasks and many problems, and some people cannot. I’m somewhere in between the two extremes on that spectrum.

Most of this is boring I believe from an avid reader’s point of view but I think that it should be actually bearably satisfying of how simple an overview of a night between a guy and girl is. I hope so.