St. Patrick's Night

You looked at the clock and let out another sigh...

It was St. Patrick's day, and you were supposed to meet with some co-workers to go out for dinner and some drinks, one of them was supposed to come to pick you up an hour and a half ago, but nobody had shown up yet...

By now, you had lost hope, your only doubt was if they had forgotten you or if they had stood you up on purpose...

You were new to the city and didn't have any friends, so you were trying to get along with some coworkers...you knew they didn't see you as a friend or were too interested in it, they had their group already, but at least they tolerated you, and you hoped that eventually, they'd welcome you a bit more...or that you'd find friends in some other way...you'd always been a bit lost in that area.

Last week, you had heard them talking about the Saint Patrick's parade that was going to be held on the weekend, they were planning to go, and you had summoned all your courage to ask if you could see them there. They had seemed taken aback, but they had nodded. You had enjoyed the parade, even if your coworkers had been talking and joking with each other and you had felt out of place, and when they had talked about going out for drinks the actual St. Patrick's night, you again had gathered enough courage to ask...after all, they were talking about it right in front of you.

They had looked at each other but one of them had agreed, telling you that she'd go pick you up, since you still didn't know how to navigate the city too confidently, but you had been waiting for an hour and a half, and nobody had shown up. You had tried phoning her house, but nobody was picking up.

You wondered if something had happened, or if they had changed plans without letting you know, or if they had forgotten about you, or maybe gone out without you because they didn't want you to go with them...

You were trying not to, but you were feeling a bit like crying, and you didn't know what to do with yourself. You had dolled up for the occasion, putting more effort in your make up than you'd ever do, even using some green eyeshadow because it was Saint Patrick's after all, even if you thought it might be silly, and wearing a nightdress that you always kept unused in the back of the closet...

Now you felt like an idiot. All this effort for nothing, you'd dolled up to stay at home...you scoffed bitterly, shaking your head, feeling stupid.

Maybe you could go out by yourself, since you were dressed up already... You felt wary about it, wasn't it weird, to go drinking alone? And in a day like that when everyone would be with group of friends...besides, going out at night alone, maybe it didn't sound like the best plan...

But if you didn't do stuff alone, it seemed like you'd never do anything in your life, and you could go to any pub area where there'd be more people around...even if it still sounded kind of pathetic to you that you were going alone...

Letting out another sigh, you dig into your coat's pocket until you found your crumpled map of the city. You had marked there the place that your coworkers had been talking about...maybe you could go on your own...

It took you another half an hour of going back and forth and trying to decide what to do until you finally decided to go ahead and go out on your own, have a drink in some pub, see if you managed to have fun... There were probably more areas than the one your coworkers had been talking about, but you didn't know any, and so you decided to head to that one.

You took a cab, even if you felt guilty about spending money like that, but you didn't want to walk alone at night when you still didn't know the city, and you didn't want to get lost. Once the cab dropped you at the address that you had given it, you looked around curiously.