Episode 31: The Panic button

So, the other night, going out clubbing with a whole bunch of people, including My New Best Friend Le Poulet was not a smart idea.
We all met for drinks at a bar and suddenly this swarm of women arrived, all friends with Le Poulet and his mates. I have no idea how well they all knew each other, where they met, and what the dynamic of the group was, but let's say that after one of my friends left, we were left with 3 guys (inc Le Poulet), those three girls, and me. Spot the odd one out.
When we hit the club I was increasingly ill at ease and after sampling one cocktail I decided to roll back home. Which sucked because the music was starting to get really good and I had been very excited about that night out. But I could not just stand there and watch these guys, among which my ex-boyfriend, flirting like mad with scantily-clad creatures (well I don't know if it was really flirting, but I did not want to stay longer to find out).
So let's say the night was not a success, and when I got home, in tears, I really wished there was a panic button hidden somewhere in my flat. Imagine, you press the button and a guy in a tuxedo appears bringing you a silver tray with chocolate, a hot drink, and a scroll with really appropriate advice. But in any case the whole fiasco did not help me to feel any better about myself, my decision to move to this town, and just everything in general.
Because I am a positive person by nature, I have decided to put in place a set of rules to avoid the need to hit the panic button again (at least not too much):
- no going out to parties / clubbing / drinks with lots of people with Le Poulet. We can meet up for civilised dinners, see each other when our friends are in town, but for at least a few months I do not want to be exposed to him with other women.
- be more careful around the amounts of alcohol I drink. The Clubbing Fiasco night was ok actually, I was in no mood for drinking or having fun so I stuck to water most of the time, but there are plenty of parties to go and bars to hit (as I already experienced in my couple of weeks here) and if I don't want to become an alcoholic I need to watch myself, at least a bit.
- no more swapping mobile phone numbers with entire clubs / bars. I have got a new mobile phone here and I do not have many numbers in it, and for some obscure reason when I go out (and have even one small tiny drink) I have this tendency to swap numbers with every single person I speak to. And the next day, I can measure how much I had to drink by the number of strange phone numbers I added in my phone. I mean, seriously??!
- make the Work thing Work.
- meet up with all the friends of friends with whom I have been put in touch (through my friends back home), go out to sample Hong Kong's cultural and artistic side, and in general start building my own network of friends.
- no more feeling sorry for myself