Page 88 of One Night With You

The others are identified as Manroop, and Leticia and Woody.

‘Let’s crack on,’ says Manroop to us all. ‘It’s Baltic.’

We all chat as we wait to get into the bar, passing around a flask of vodka between us that burns as I swallow. We’re a bit further removed from the student area where the undergrads go out, and it’s a strange feeling to be surrounded by people who obviously work for a living, some in suits having obviously not been home after the office, people from more creative jobs in shirts and chinos with trainers. That will be me again, soon. I’m six months in with six more to go, which means every day that passes is one less day in the safe cocoon of a university and one day closer to hopefully making this documentary stuff work for me. Somehow.

‘You’re not drunk enough,’ Harry says, wagging a finger at me. ‘Stop thinking about work.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about wo—’

He thrusts the flask at me, not buying what I’m saying, and I take another fiery gulp.

‘Harry says you’re a fellow film-maker?’ Manroop offers, as I pass the flask off to Beau and his brother.

‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘Trying to be.’

‘He got us all to follow the Instagram account,’ he continues. ‘I have no idea what it was about, but he stood over us and made sure we did it.’

‘I hope you like what you see,’ I tell him. ‘Waste of a follow if you don’t.’

‘I don’t really use social a lot. I prefer the real world.’

I screw up my face at him. A man with a topknot who protests about social media and thinks he’s special for knowing it’s rotting our brains? That’s so boring to me. I cantell he wants to get chatting, but he issonot my type at all. Too self-aware, trying too hard. Not like Harry, being his loveable self, or somebody like Nic, awkward but genuine, asking questions to find out things, not asking questions as a way to talk about himself.

‘What?’ Manroop says.

I shake my head. ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘It’s just, everyone knows social media is a black hole and a time suck.’

‘So why is everyone on it then?’

‘Including you?’ I bat back. ‘You just said you followed us.’

‘But I try not to,’ he counters. ‘My mate, he’s got a screen time report of like, four hours a day. That’s over a hundred hours a month. Imagine what he could do with over a hundred hours a month!’

‘Maybe that’s the point,’ I say. ‘He doesn’t want to be maximising his time, achieving every second. Maybe smart phones are the new TV. It’s just we don’t get screen time reports for watching TV, do we?’

‘No.’ He laughs. ‘Just that little box that comes up and saysare you still watching?when you got past five episodes of something.’

‘Ahh,’ I say, and we’re at the front of the queue, now, our group next to be let inside. ‘So you aren’t so perfect. You do have some bad habits …’

‘I never said anyone had bad habits,’ Manroop defends. ‘Only that it’s a lot, isn’t it, four hours a day?’

‘But four hours of TV is okay? That’s different?’

‘If you’re learning something, yes.’

I laugh. ‘How do you know your friend isn’t following accounts about something he’s passionate about? That he hasn’t found his community online through a special hashtag that’s unleashed a whole new world to him?’ Manroop goesto speak but I don’t let him interrupt. ‘You know social media is a key element for grassroots political movements, don’t you? Facebook and Twitter played a key and meaningful role in bringing down the Mubarak regime in Egypt.’

‘Russia targets the LGBTQ+ through the rainbows they use in social media profiles.’

‘Black Lives Matter.’

‘That’s true.’ He nods. ‘Videos of injustice make people act in a way reported still images in newspapers don’t.’

‘If it ever gets to the newspapers,’ I say. ‘Anyway, I don’t even have skin in this game. I don’t care if you hate social media or not. I just think it’s a weird hill to die on – making out like people who enjoy it are stupid.’

‘That’s not quite what I said, is it?’

He’s smiling as he speaks. I’m getting all riled up by this pompous idiot saying things just to maximise his oxygen use, and he’s laughing.

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