oriels-dinner

Last night a dinner was had with old and new friends who happened to know each other. Here’s how it happened:

  1. I showed my best high school friend Thamanoon who had just returned from a 2-year stint in Sydney, pictures of Global Gathering. He commented that he recognises the face of a friend whom I’d met through Lydia – Andrea.
  2. The other day I had lunch with Andrea and Simon, during which I’d mentioned Thamanoon’s name to her. OMG! Are you serious?! She almost shrieked. Since I had the day off and Thama hasn’t started working yet, Andrea had ask me to call Thama out for a coffee in the afternoon.
  3. Thama came out and it turns out they had known each other for close to 19 years and somehow lost touch a while ago. And not only that, Andrea also know another high school friend, Paul.
  4. Andrea then suggested dinner last night, and there we were – friends old and new of mine who knew each other almost inside out. Surreal.
  5. Also, the place where we had dinner, Oriels happened to the place where we used to hang out late nights at one time or another. Last night, we stayed for almost 4 hours just talking about everything. As Thama said, it all feels very time-capsule-ish. :)

aww

Inevitably, one topic of conversation that came up during our dinner was about relationships and sex. And Paul uttered these funny words,

I just want to hold her hands.

To hear him say that was so uncharacteristic of him that we kept saying, “What?! Come on! Are you serious?!”

We teased him endlessly. We sang The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” to him. We commented on pretty girls by saying to Paul, “Hey Paul, would you hold her hand?”, and “Hey Paul, she’s got nice hands huh?” And when Paul commented on Fernando Verdasco’s hair, whose match with Rafael Nadal was playing on the big screen in the restaurant, we’d said, “Yeah Paul wants to hold his hands.”

It wasn’t only until later in the night that we had understood what Paul had meant. He pointed out that, like most of us, he doesn’t want a girl just for sex, he wanted someone whom, when he wakes up in the morning next to, he is happy about, and that he wants to be content just from being able to hold her hands, for someone to be there next to him.

So in the end, after providing us with a few hours of hilarity, Paul’s words made perfect sense. :)