I met a stranger last night, and I think that he saved me a little.
Last night in my tipsy yet complete aware state, I started a conversation with a small group of Irish guys. After quickly discerning that they were not your typical Irish lads that had come over to Newcastle to live the Geordie Shore lifestyle for a weekend, our friendship groups merged.
So ensued a fun evening of beer and Westlife singalongs.
Flash forward to the tail end of the night, after seeing off my girlfriends into taxis, I walked back over to our new Irish friends to say goodnight, good luck, god speed.
In true Irish spirit, they had decided that 2am was not an acceptable home time and that their night would go on!... I happily offered to walk them to a nearby club.
Three out of the four (perfectly lovely) new friends were single. I, therefore, choose number four as my walking buddy. With my few inhibitions that I usually hold having been replaced by various types of beer, I asked number four if he would put his arm around me as we walked.
As we had already discussed his (lovely sounding) girlfriend and my lack of incentive to pursue anything romantically, we were both 100 per cent happy in the platonic phase of our newly formed friendship.
A leisurely 15 min walk to the club followed, where we spoke out nothing in particular but our conversation flowed naturally and comfortably.
In fact, without even thinking I asked him to told me tighter as if we had already spent months or even years getting to know each other, and without question, he did so.
My head settled on to his chest (he was tall, 6ft 2ish), my fingers absentminded, gently holding on to his shirt buttons and his arm wrapped so tightly around me that I felt like everything was once again right with the world and the last tremulous 6 months had simply been erased.
On the outside, it most likely looked like a nice guy making sure that a drunk girl was ok, but it was so much more than that.
I feel like ‘number four’ lifted me up for a few minutes, took the world off my shoulders and allowed me to breathe fully for a few extraordinary moments.
As we reached the club, number four concluded that he was sure that in another time and space we would have been great ‘pub going, darts playing, laughing until we cry friends’, I wholeheartedly agreed and following his request pointed him in the direction of the bathroom.
Without exchanging anything more than first names, a couple of hours of dancing to 90′s hits and a short walk at 2am, I turned around and left.
As I walked back through my familiar city towards my taxi pickup point, I walked a little taller, a little straighter and with a little more gusto than I had before.
So thank you number four.
