Another memory.

Years ago, my favourite bar wasn't my current favourite bar. But we'd go there regularly - myself, BW, AM, QC1 and the rest of the crowd. It did live music music too. In fact, it was where I met CAB, though she is not the focus of this post. This one's for R2. R2 was serving behind the bar one night when BW and I were in. She let a pint overflow as she was trying to make too many drinks at one time and I teased her about it. We struck up a kind of conversation every time I went to the bar and, to give her credit, she remembered me a few weeks later.

From then on, if I went in and she was working, we'd chat if she served me. This continued to grow to the point where, if she was on a break and we were in the bar, she'd sit with us and chat.

QC1, QC2 and AM were delighted.

"She's really into you," they'd say.

I didn't see it. We chatted, that was it. There was no flirting going on that I could tell, no physical touching to suggest anything other than a potential friend. I never knew if she was dating or seeing anyone else.

It was months later when everything seemed to click. I had a spare weekend, she had a rare weekend off, we'd mentioned our shared interest in a few bands, one of which was playing in town. So we arranged to meet. I didn't consider it a date - I'd still seen nothing to make me believe this was anything other than platonic. I called to confirm times and her flatmate told me she was in the shower and would call me back. The call never came.

The next day, I was doing some charity work with QC2 and invited her back to mine for a coffee afterwards.

We were talking about R2 when the phone rang. It was R2. She was apologetic - friends called round and she got side-tracked having a drink with them and didn't even get to the gig. She promised that we'd definitely have a night out.

I relayed all this back to QC2 who was dubious.

Our normal routine returned for a month or so until she sat beside me, one night, on her break.

She was leaving, she explained. Once she got her graduation ceremony out of the way, she'd gotten a visa for the States and was off there to live.

And she did just that, but we retained our little friendship until she left, and did manage to see each other socially a few times - a night out and a couple of lunch dates, the last only a few days before she left. It ended with a kiss. Like those I used to get from CH - slightly too long to be a peck on the lips, not quite long enough to be able to definitively say was not platonic.

She took my address, though I never expected to hear from her again... but surprisingly, she did send letters and we stayed in contact probably for four years or so. They stopped suddenly, though I didn't ever find out why. There was a chance sighting in my home town in 2009 that prompted me to look for her on Facebook and send a friend request and we've been in sporadic contact ever since. Today, according to Facebook, is the 9th anniversary for our Facebook friendship.