Yesterday I went to the races. Horse races. It was my first experience of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a famous event in the the English horse racing calendar. My friend is a regular at that race, so invited me along. What a fantastic girls day out!

We started the day with bubbly, however, at the race course we switched to Guinness, because apparently that’s what you do. And who are we to question the tradition! 😉 We bet on horses, a couple of times with real money, sometimes only virtually, the cheer for our chosen horse was equally enthusiastic though. And as always: you win some, you lose some. Ha ha!

Later in the afternoon we meet some friends and moved into the corporate box where we exchanged the Guinness for champagne. One of those friends brought his cousin along, who was a guy who I thought fits my ‘type’ spot on, rather attractive. He was nice, but didn’t pay much attention to neither my friend nor me. Which was fine and didn’t bother us much, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, the rest of the group was fun and entertaining.

Fast forward to later that evening, having moved from bar to bar, we ended up in a small gin bar in the centre of town. One of the couples got into a little argument, they went outside to ‘talk it out’, my friend went with them and it so happened that this guy and I were the only ones left from our group. So I turned to him to chat, and before I could say anything he says ‘Well great, everyone has left. I’m now stuck with you. How awkward.’ And boom! I stood there, looking at him in disbelief. We hadn’t spoken much throughout the day, so how dare he say that? And before you ask: he wasn’t joking. And as much as I resent myself for it, it really stung and hurt me, much more than I like to admit. I looked at him and said that he was not held captive and is free to leave at any point. Then I turned around and danced with a random group of people, just to get away from him and not let him see how I felt. What an arsehole (excuse my language)! I tumbled. Not literally, but for a moment I forgot who I was,  and that he can’t touch me or negate anything about me because he doesn’t know me. For a short moment I wondered if chatting to me really is such a dull thing to do. And I was annoyed that I fell for his attractive looks and kind of outmanoeuvred myself with it – I should’ve known better. Sigh. And I was upset, for a minute, and that annoyed me even more. I shouldn’t let him get to me like that, because: who is he? Insignificant.

I shed a tear, secretly, and then straightened my back, brushed this off and went back to the dancing and laughing. Determined not to let this idiot spoil my evening. And it worked. If this had happened two years ago, I would have struggled with the self doubt for hours or even days, now I know who I am (even though I forgot about it for a moment). Girl – gotcha!

That’s my success for the day!

PS: He later apologised, but only because my friend told him to do so. So he can bugger off. Apology not accepted.