RoyII

This weekend, my social plans for Saturday were dealt a near fatal blow. The traditional crawl of the pubs on the Broadway in Wimbledon was cruelly put paid to by a plague of flu - all my mates went down with it, leaving me left with nothing to do and no where to go. As is usually the case when this scenario occurs, a last minute cinema trip was rapidly improvised, so once more I found myself bound for the Rotunda in Kingston upon Thames, though this time it was to see this film:

On purchasing my ticket, I found I had a few minutes to spare before the start of the film, so I decided to have a swift pint in one of the bars in the Rotunda complex. Not really being an aficionado of solo drinking, I was sort of banking on no one being around who would recognise me, as from an image point of view, being on your own on a Saturday night does look kind of sad. Needless to say, on entering the pub, I immediately saw a girl who I know by sight from a pub in Surbiton, who happened to be with several friends. She smiled, and we exchanged greetings as I passed her on my way to the bar, feeling like a bit of a loser.

After a much needed pint, I headed off to the Odeon lobby to find the screen showing 'Tropic Thunder'. I was in the queue for the obligatory ticket check when I heard my name being called. I turned to see a guy I know from a pub where I play pool. He was there with his girlfriend seeing a film called 'Death Race', which struck me as not the most romantic of films to see on a date.

'On your own then?'

His question was obviously meant kindly, but I felt that old paranoid feeling of all eyes upon me as I nodded in agreement.

The rest of the evening went without incident, and the film turned out to be really funny and entertaining, which made up in part for the slight discomfort earlier. I didn't realise before that my life was so compartmentalised!