Last weekend I find myself standing, swaying ever so slightly, in a throng of party people I didn’t really know. It was a 40th. I get a perverse pleasure welcoming others to this decade, so make a point of going to them. They go one of two ways. You get the ‘I’m 40 now, so I’ll throw a pseudo-sophisticated dinner party to show I’m grown up’…these either end bloody early as they’re boring as, or wind up slightly later with people throwing up in plant pots and arguing with their wives. The other way they go, which is the way this one certainly looked to be going was ‘I’m fucking 40 and I’m going to party like it’s my last day alive…mutha funkstas!’…my favorite of the two options, but that’s an aside.

I’m bouncing from one knot of people to the next and relaxing into the night. The little trip to the powder room has imparted a comfortable buzz. The night moves on and all things ratchet up a few notches. I’ve just extracted myself from the rant of some ex-architect who now makes leather bikes seats and my god had I seen his wife? Isn’t she wonderful and did you know she was black, you couldn’t tell by looking at her and look at those legs. Did I tell you I made a bike saddle for so and so and etc etc, and am taking a private moment when my focus pulls in on a short (ish) woman standing in front of me. She’s just called me by my name. My memory banks come up empty. I mentally scramble through recent occasions and events – still blank. I therefore assume we must’ve met in the desert recently…at that bastion of madness, Afrikaburn. That would make sense. Similar people. Similar vibe. That must’ve been it…but it wasn’t.

‘It’s me, X, we met at your office last week.’

I feel myself draw up straight and move into auto-pilot. The scrambled synapses find their sequence and we chat. When I say chat, we danced. We conversationally tangoed each looking for the opening to broach the ‘are you high?’ question. Neither of us allowing that opening to occur. Neither wanting to be the first to drop the pretense. How ridiculous, and I remember thinking this at the time, that two adults were struggling to be adults on their own time because of a link to their grindstones. This continues for a while until some guy (who turns out to be her husband) sidles up and offers us both some MDMA, and the faking and parrying ends and we have a blast and uncovered a whole lot of shared history.

As fun as it was this little encounter got me thinking: is there an etiquette in these situations? And if so what is it and what drives it? Surely as two functioning adults, what you get up to on your own clock is your business and not something that you need to hide? Is it though? I’ve tried to project our next ‘work’ meeting and wonder how it will pan out with the knowledge we each have about it each other. I’d like to think it will be more open. That we’ll each understand where the other’s coming from and that the level of professionalism will remain intact and be more authentic for no longer being clouded in fake funk. Has my view of her changed knowing that she tucks into the same recreationals as I do? It would be more than hypocritical if it has. I wonder if I’ll take her as seriously? We’ll see…

Anyhow, the night moved on to include a woman jumping out of a cake, a bunch of grumpy little Playboy bunny waitresses getting grumpier and the smallest dwarf I’ve ever tripped over wondering around, dressed in a ring master’s coat, with beer and cocaine on a plate for the party boy…but that’s another story right there, which I may, may not get around to writing. If I do I’ll call ‘Who’s exploiting who: the ethics of dwarf hiring’, or something similar, but right now it’s time for a swim. Over and out.