Euro-jaunt …chapter four

It was a cold frosty morning in mid-January. The furry covered hot water bottle under my feet was slightly to hot to put my full weight on as I sat looking out the window at the sparkling roofs across Newcastle.
‘I feel depressed’ I thought to myself. Then the phone rang. I looked down and it was Michael, one of the other Newcastle pick-up guys. I stared at the phone, wondering whether to answer. I wasn’t feeling sociable and wondered why he would be ringing, ‘Surely he’s back at University in Leeds now,’ I thought.
“Morning Michael.” I said slowly as I punched the green telephone icon.
“Hey, just need an answer to a quick question if you’re not busy?”
“Well I was just about to make some cornflakes bu..”
“Breakfast at this time? Anyway all I wanted to ask is how long you think I should leave it before texting again to a girl who hasn’t replied to my message?”
“How long has it been so far?”
“Hmm, about twenty one and a half hours.”
“Leave it another day or two and send her a ping, something that offers value but doesn’t need a reply, like maybe a picture of the ice outside and then a follow up message saying something about risking your life trying to get to class. It doesn’t need to be amazing, just a little creative to make her smile inside, basically just something that puts you back on her radar. Where did you meet her anyway?”
“Ahh well, I’ll tell you but let’s keep this to ourselves ok?”
“Ok.”
“OK, so basically I’ve discovered there’s an obscene amount of Asian girls that want to learn English, and there’s an app where you can chat to help each other, like a vernaculous trade. So I’m pretending I want to learn Chinese and I’ve already got three girls I’m teaching English too. I figure all I have to do is build a bit more comfort with them based around this language exchange and then I’ll go for the meet up once they trust me. The only problem is the one I like most hasn’t replied since yesterday afternoon and I’m worried she’s worked out my strategy.”
“Mate that sounds like a lot of effort that probably won’t pay off given the language barrier, neither of you can communicate, you’re probably both using Google translate to understand your messages to each other.”
“Yeah, hmm.”
“By the way, it’s official, I’m going to start putting more effort into this ‘daygame’ stuff you guys go on about, it’s about time I did.”
There was a pause, I wondered if the line had went dead or if this was just Michael pondering what to say, “Hmm, yeah. I think that’s a good idea,” finally came his reply.
“Nothing much has happened lately and after speaking to Bodi and Chris about it I think I want to see if I can meet better girls during the day than the ones I’m meeting in clubs.”
“Better how?”
“Better in every way hopefully, better looking, more down to earth, less arrogant and pretentious.”
I knew Michael would approve of this, he secretly despised the club girls and longed to meet a geek chic type girl, particularly Asian if possible, the type he would more likely find in a library. His mirror image.
“Why not come down to Leeds and then we’ll head to Sheffield for the weekend to do some daygame together, I’m nervous about trying but I’m up for it if you are. Plus if we go to Sheffield then neither of us will know anybody so we’ll have less approach anxiety.” He let out a satisfied moan as if this was a done deal.
“Ok,” I told him, “will be good to get away for the weekend somewhere too. I’ll drop you a text and we’ll sort something out for in a couple of weeks.”
“Cool, looking forward to it.”

Click here to read chapter five