Mitch

I have a feeling these blog posts will have a tendency to turn into reports of what I did last night. Not that it’s a bad thing, but still it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I started this thing. But I guess I’ll be dropping some fundamental truths about Finland and the Finns here somewhere. And at least they’ll help you understand where I’m coming from as your trusted guide.

Friday evening. Exhausted after a long deadline-week at work. I hear how an instant messenger “you have a new message” sound plays.

It’s Mitch.

“What’s your plan for tonight? Go out, party hard?” he has for some reason formed an image in his mind that these days a) I go out every Friday night and b) every time I do go out, somehting utterly weird and awesome happens that gets retold as legends for the countless years to come.

“Well, I’m not doing anything, but was thinking of warming up the car and driving downtown, go to a bar, socialize, drive home. Sober night. Wanna come with?” Might as well prove to the guy that my evenings out are usually less than legendary.

“Okay. I’m feeling quite social as well, so sure, why not.”

“Great. Let me take a shower, find something to wear and come fetch you.”

Hot shower, fix the hair. Find the suit pants I wore in the client meetings today. Grab a pink buttoned shirt, a vest, and sweater on top of all that, just in case. It was minus 15°C outside during the day, no idea what it’s like now, better be prepared for everything. Ah. Stash a spare tie in the coat pocket. You can never go wrong having a tie with you.

We head to Kaisla, but it’s full. Not really surprising, considering how popular being a beer-snob has become in the past few years amongst the 20-something academics. Next try is PRKL, which has room, but some of Mitch’s students are there, so we give it a miss as well. We eventually find ourselves sitting at Time, a nice small bar with high class prices and a terrible soundtrack on the background.

Mitch was one of my best friends as a kid. And the oldest friend I’m still in regular contact with. We talked about life, girls, computers, music and whatever came to our minds back then. That was something like two decades ago. Tonight we’re sitting in a bar and talking about … life, girls, computers and music. And even if the “what would it be like to have a girlfriend” talk is now more in the lines of “well, I was talking with my ex the other day” and the random toying with computers and music has become much more professional, it’s still pretty funny how things stay the same on some level.

I can see how the evening is not living up to his expectations already. He wants something legendary, and nothing seems to be happening. On his cue we take our leave. I have agreed to meet with my lil’ sis later, so we head to Cuba, stopping at a couple of places on the way there (it’s cold out there, so any stop where it’s warm is a good stop).

Considering that I’m bar-hopping with one of the best guitar-players in Finland, it’s really funny that he’s putting the social pressure on me for the success of the evening. I’m the mild-mannered graphic designer. He’s the rock star, he should do the heavy lifting. I chuckle.

To build up his reputation a bit here – if Mitch wanted, he could easily form his own band, get some other big names he knows to play in it, make a lots of cash and all that jazz. Hell, probably even by playing jazz. But what does he do? He’s a teacher. And nope. Not a guitar teacher. His expertise is some form of higher level maths that’s frankly a bit beyond my understanding. And he really likes what he’s doing. Or so I assume, because he keeps teaching and refuses offers to go touring with awesome Finnish bands.

Long story short, we do get to Cuba, meet with my sis and her work friends there, and have a great evening. The girls are maybe celebrating something or just spending the Friday there like they do every time. I don’t really know and it never really comes clear from the conversations. I have a few laughs, spend way too much cash on diet coke, mess my hair on the dance floor when some weird version of Prodigy’s Out of Space starts playing, and sing karaoke (well, technically Singstar or some clone) until my throat is sore. I have a total blast.

As I listen to Mitch’s recollection of the evening while we walk back to the car I can only imagine how it must have looked like through his eyes. He tells a story of how we went to sit in a couple of bars and had long conversations there. Then he had a few more with the friends and friends of friends at Cuba. At some point, he got confused for someone else briefly. And then he sang some karaoke.

He makes a remark on how it would be nice to meet someone new in such an environment and make random friends. Maybe even someone who’ll turn out to be more than a friend.

I smile, nod and explain to him how my life isn’t all adventures at the high seas no matter what he’s heard. Sometimes the best evenings come from just being with friends and enjoying.

What I don’t tell him is how all through the night I’ve been watching amazed (and maybe a bit jealous, I don’t like sharing the attention) as various cute girls keep checking him out (the first two were doing that at Time, right when he decided we should head out and find something interesting to do), and staring in utter disbelief as Captain Oblivious there managed to dismiss a Grade A approach from a beauty in Cuba (the whole getting confused for someone else thing). And it’s not just the girls. Some guy there actually bought him a beer, which he declined and continued with the conversation he had been having before.

“But even if it was just friends. It was a good night.”

“Yup. That it was.” I shake my head and smile.