A wearing night out with M

Date: 9/24/2016

On holiday with M, AA & J. We are heading out for the night and plans haven't been communicated. We are in a busy city centre shopping street and I have a bike. I'm losing the others who keep wandering this way and that. I need to get money from a cash point and as I'm trying to stay with the others I am missing the opportunity to get in queues for machines which are getting longer and longer. Eventually I lose my patience & struggle to negotiate my bike to a queue and keep it out of the way of passing pedestrians. I bemoan to another pedestrian how the lack of cycle parking here makes it very difficult for cyclists and peds as we're forced to keep bikes with us or park them in inappropriate places. M has shown up and is drinking something is a salacious, teenage sort of way. She starts fiddling with a button that has come off the bottle, being mildly sexual in her manner. She's not focusing her attention on me, instead she's trying to catch the attention of passers by and keeps trying to engage strangers in conversation. Eventually she throws the button towards a bin, but misses and it drops on the lip of a flower bed nearby. She doesn't seem prepared to pick it up to put it in the bin, which annoys me and I'm about to complain to her that she's to sort it. Someone else pick it up & starts examining it, at which point she gets interested again and goes over to talk to the person about it. I'm stupefied, frustrated and pretty furious. We go back to the apartment, get dressed and go out. The whole time I can't get a clear picture of where we are going, or even if we have a clear decision on where we're going. M is mostly talking over me and giving vague responses about this option or that option which she has seen and looks amazing, but not what she wants to do, or anyone else, or what has been arranged. The others seem to just quietly acquiesce and get ready, the lack of knowing is increasingly bothering me, together with M's manner. We make our way out, still I feel directionless and unhappy. I'm constantly trying to discuss our options and gain some understanding of where we are going. Eventually we end up at a concert for some Latino style Folk/Ballad singer a long haired crooner who seems loosely modelled on a lothario figure and I instantly have a dislike. It seems we have tickets to attend, so this has apparently been decided beforehand, but we are late. The event has already started, there are few seats left and we've missed at least the first portion of the show. We arrive in a break while the singer is off stage and people are talking and taking rest breaks. M bundles us right up next to the stage where she spots a table for 8 and starts to sit down. I point out that there are already drinks at the table so someone is here. She gets up from her seat and says there are only drinks on 4 seats closest to the stage so they can share the table with us and we'll sit on the other end. And she moves us over. I'm still unhappy, tell her she should wait and ask the people at the table before making herself comfortable. It's not assigned tables which means those who arrived early have secured good tables and she shouldn't assume she can just muscle her way onto a table. "They can share, there's space." She keeps insisting, brushing me off & settling herself in, looking for a waiter to order drinks. AA and J have gone to the toilets. As some people are returning from the back of the stage towards us I again insist she asks instead of assuming. She brushes it off again and I shout "just ask them!". She rolls her eyes, huffs at me, and when they arrive she does speak to them. She's bubbly, instead of asking she's seeking confirmation, acting pally. They tell her that they already have friends who will be sitting there but who are backstage helping with the show at the moment. Nonchalantly she gets up and excuses herself to the toilet as AA returns leaving us to find a table. We find the last available table right at the back of the room with no view of the stage at all. The MC invites people onto the dancefloor to take part in a choreographed dance they have apparently been learning during the show so far. I say that I'm OK thanks and perhaps later while AA jumps up and takes part. The entire room is up dancing, and I am the only person sat down, I watch and realise instructions are quite complicated, and there would be no chance I could join in having missed the earlier demonstrations. I change my shoes and think about having a go later, start thinking that this might not have been so bad had I known what to expect and had we arrived on time. Feeling guilty for being annoyed at M, and going over it all in my head as to whether she had been difficult or I'd been unfair. As they finish dancing and return to their seats AA make her way back to me, but she is flustered and heady from the dancing and mistakenly takes a drink from table 2 tables in front, when she realises she apologises and slightly stumbles to the table behind, still the wrong table. I'm feeling tired of it all, as she makes her way finally to the right table.