What's more awkward than sharpening your blunt-from-lack-of-practice flirting skills on a cheeky barrista in a coffee shop? Flirting with the barrista and suddenly realising your mother is watching you disapprovingly.
After work yesterday, my mum asked me if I'd be interested in going to a special screening of the opera Tosca at Vue Westfield. I was there in a flash- I love opera, I love cinema, and I've always wanted to go to one of the interesting functions my mum often gets to go to as part of her job (she works for a media production and promotion company). I also saw it as an opportunity to practise my networking skills- I'm a keen writer, but I'm quite a clumsy conversationlist at times because my brain often works faster than my mouth is able to formulate the right words. So, feeling relieved that I always dress well for work anyway and was already wearing a nice dress and boots, I made my way there.
I met mum at the Starbucks near the station there, and went up to grab a hot chocolate, and ended up chatting/ flirting lightheartedly with the barrista guy before remember that my mum was sat right behind me, and was quite opening staring at us. I was all the more mortified when it came to paying and my well-meaning mum suddenly called me and thrust a handful of money in my direction (which I very politely declined, laughing 'thanks, don't worry about it' but dying a bit inside at the same time). At least the barrista guy seemed to appreciate the fact that I stacked everything up neatly before we moved on- having worked in catering before I always make a point of trying to make serving staff's lives as easy as possible.
The rest of the evening was quite surreal- there I was in the posh part of the cinema, smartly dressed and sipping glasses of champagne, eating tiny canapes and schmoozing with other guests (making a joke of the fact that I was only a 'plus one' and that my mum was really the one in the media industry, but no-one seemed to mind), and then going on to see an opera, albeit on screen. At one point I rather inelegantly sent a chunk of feta cheese flying whilst gesturing wildly, which was quite embarrassing (I cleaned it up myself- again, less work for the waiting staff), but far worse embarrassing things have happened to me, so it didn't bother me too much, so it didn't bother anyone else either (I hope).
I think I made a good (read: at very least memorable..!) impression, on the whole, even if I never meet any of these people again. One guy likened me to Katniss from the Hunger Games when me doing archery somehow came into the conversation,which was slightly amusing in an ironic way, seeing as I'd met someone a few days ago who reminded me of Peeta Mellark from the movie version (see my previous entry). Anyway, it was great fun getting to know different people and with just the right amount of glamour without me feeling ridiculous and out of place, and I could get used to that sort of life- although I know it was a one-off. I felt like Cinderella, going around talking to Important People at an Exclusive Event, going home by midnight. In any case, I've definitely come a long way in terms of being able to go around a room and talk to strangers by myself, and I hope I can only get better.
I also hope I get better at keeping small cubes of cheese on little blinis as opposed to on the floor, too.
~Fin~
Afterword: I wrote a short article about Vue cinema's campaign to bring opera to the silver screen and make it more accessible to the masses, I'll post a link or something when I figure out where to publish it.
No comments:
Post a Comment