Fond memories.

I had a dream last night about a night I'd spent with V a few years ago. I've no idea why I dreamt about it as it's been months since I last thought of V, but I thought it was worth blogging. It was one of those nights that you wish would happen all the time and that would never end while you're experiencing them.

It was well after 3 AM when I arrived back in my apartment and it would be fair to say that I was pretty toasted. After all, I'd been drinking pretty constantly since 4 PM the previous day. GFW (a work colleague) and myself had gone for our usual post-work drinks at the local bar. The barmaid, V, liked us. She gave us free drinks, usually. Yes, I know, the bar staff always give free drinks in America if you tip decently enough, but from what I could tell, V went above and beyond with us.

This evening was no exception and by the time GFW and myself left only a few hours later, we had a good buzz on due to beers and vodka cocktails. That evening, I was hosting a poker night at my apartment for the first part anyway, then we were going to see what was on. It was Hallowe'en night, so I think the idea was to see if we could go somewhere a bit fun.

V had already told myself and GFW about a place she was heading to and invited us along if we were interested. We asked her to pop in to our poker game before she went to her own party and said that we'd consider it.

GFW was definitely considering it. For some reason, the assumption was there that V and I had a bit of a spark going on. To be honest, I'm not sure if that was entirely accurate. V was an attractive girl, though. Whether anything was ever on the cards was a matter of speculation. I certainly wasn't convinced (though was always on the lookout). I do think the rest of the guys were more than convinced that it was only a matter of time. I'd hoped that the fact that V hadn't shown up at our poker night for a drink would perhaps make the guys less enthusiastic about V and myself getting together.

When the poker ended around midnight, I was already gone with the best part of a bottle of gin in me. We split into two groups. One set of us went to a local Polish bar while the rest of us tried to find V's “party”. We did eventually find it, due to some single-minded navigation by our driver who took us the wrong way initially.

When we arrived at this party, it was just a bar, albeit quite busy. We met V, who was propped up at one end of the bar, dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and bloody hell, did she look good. I mean... Oh. My. God. She always looked good at our local bar, but she never dressed up. I don't remember her in anything other than floral patterned long dresses that I always thought were too 'old' for her. I never said that, though.

We got chatting to V and found out she was a guest of the guys that owned the bar, a husband and wife team. They offered us free drinks, so we had a few shots and bought a few beers. Then the bar owner came out and offered us hash brownies, which went down a storm. By this stage I was probably about as wrecked as I'd ever been in my entire life and we were already drawing a bit of a crowd. I can't remember why, we weren't doing anything that would draw attention to ourselves at this point – myself and GFW were chatting to V and the other guys were chatting amongst themselves.

Then we got stuck into the helium balloons...

Once we started inhaling the helium and talking in high pitched voices with Irish accents, then we drew a crowd and, dare I say it, livened up the party a little which at that point had been several groups of people all talking within their little groups. A couple of drinks later though and it was time to call it a night. The guys that owned the bar were calling last orders. Myself and the guys were about to go home but V wanted to go elsewhere. Suddenly, despite having made a good impression with the locals, they were concerned that V went home rather than tag along with us, a group of relative strangers. That was fair enough and we called it a night. By this stage it was around 3:15 AM.

I was contemplating a shower back at my apartment around ten minutes after leaving the bar when the phone rang. At that time of the morning, I was expecting it to be someone from home who had mixed up the time difference, but it turned out to be V. Weird. We got into a conversation, but it didn't seem to be anything important. I made a decision. I mentioned to V that it was late, but if she wanted to chat, she was more than welcome to come around to mine for a drink. If not, could we perhaps leave this to another time – meet for a coffee or go for a drink?

Given that V was probably as toasted as I was, her decision was to come for a drink. I gave her my address, cracked open a beer and waited.

It seemed like ages until V arrived. I think, by the watch, it was nearly 45 minutes. That's definitely an age when it's half past three in the morning, you're waiting for a girl that you're interested in and that your mates are telling you is unquestionably interested.

When V did eventually show up, there was another 'wow' moment. V turned up in a simple white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, completely different to what she wore at the bar and obviously different to her Dorothy costume. In the short period of time that I knew V (including the times I saw her after this night), this was easily the best I'd seen her looking.

I offered her a beer, but she preferred vodka. I poured the drinks and V produced some blow and some grass, which we indulged in and settled back. It's hard to describe how it went. Chatting to V in the bar was easy, though it's hard to get settled in when she had to go off and serve other customers. At my apartment at four thirty in the morning, the conversation was just, well, effortless. V sat on one of the armchairs while I spread out across the sofa and we just chatted. Every now and again, V would be gushing in her praise of how great I was. I'm all for a bit of ego stroking and this was no different.

I can't remember too many times where I've been in a situation with a girl I'm attracted to where I've been at ease enough to simply sit there and chat and yet that's exactly what happened. Maybe that's where I made a mistake.

It was after eight when we called it quits and it was already daylight outside. I was disappointed, of course, because it's not often I'm in that kind of mood and we were swapping a lot of personal information and there was a little idea at the back of my mind that something might have happened.

It didn't. I walked V to the door where I got a great hug and a kiss on the cheek. Before I could do anything else, V grabbed her coat, put on her shoes and left. I don't regret anything that happened (or didn't) that night. It was a great night and the kind I wish would happen a lot more. Part of me thinks that perhaps I should have made a move at some point during the evening/early morning, but I was really enjoying myself too much to even consider it until it was too late.

It was a good reminder of what a good night really is, but a bit depressing that I don't see a lot of nights out these days, never mind the kind of night described above. It's a good memory, though.