The time I first drank a Long Island Iced Tea

Hope is a cruel mistress.
Hope is a destructive human emotion that pushes us to commit futile and painful and inefficient acts because, maybe this time, things will be different.
Hope pulls us up, then knocks us down twice as hard and three times further, leaving us saying "at least I tried" as though that's any comfort whatsoever.

You must crush hope wherever you see it rear its siren head. Kill it dead.

This is a story about a time I shot hope down. It's not as bleak as all that.

As stories like this inevitably begin, I was going out with a girl. She was blonde and gorgeous and called Jenna and significantly younger than me. Young enough to polarise my friends between high fiving me and having serious talks with me.
It didn't last long, though. Jenna dumped me.

The following night I went out with my best friend, Arwel Griffith, to drown my sorrows.
We ended up in a jazz bar on Oldham Street in Manchester - Matt & Phreds. It was dark, loud and cool. We sat and drank and talked.
Sometime into our second drink, who should walk in but Jenna and her best mate. Both looked drop dead stunning. Better than I'd ever seen them looking.
Jenna looked amazing, single, available and totally over me.
They saw us, came over and sat down.
Arwel had not met Jenna, and had presumed I was sharking in for a rebound on these two stone cold foxes. When I told him who they were he did what every good friend should do in such circumstances. He took me to the bar and said "whatever you want".

The barman, a painfully cool and attractive chap (because Matt & Phreds only employ painfully cool and attractive people) asked me what I would like to drink.
"I've just split up with my girlfriend," I explained, "and she's just come in, looking a million dollars and is clearly over me. What would you recommend?"
"A Long Island Iced Tea" he said, and began mixing.
Matt & Phreds bar doesn't use measures, and free pours instead. Generously. The barman was more generous than usual, and passed us both a sweet brown drink in an oversized tumbler.

Halfway down, and I couldn't feel my face anymore.
This was good news. Now I could talk to Jenna, and everything would be ok.
I'd talk to her, she'd see what a stand up good bloke I am, and we'd get back together.

This was hope talking, and hope is a liar and a tease.

It soon became clear that I was delusional, that I was clinging into the last threads if hope, desperately trying not to fall into that abyss beneath me. I needed to cut the strings and tumble down.

So I got a second Long Island Iced Tea. The barman made this one stronger, and added some ginger ale for extra kick.
Best decision ever.
It was marvellous. As Arwel and I descended into inebriation we double teamed them like pro's.
He'd distract her friend whilst I poured my heart out like curdeled milk onto the floor, then when she couldn't take any more from me, he swooped in and told her just what a great guy I was and how much he could tell I liked her.
She didn't get a moments peace.
Even when they left, we gallantly walked them to the taxi rank, when I revealed my master plan to Jenna.

"I still have hope," I told her. "I still think we could get back together. And we won't. So I have to kill that hope. Kill it dead. I need to wake up tomorrow morning and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I have fucked up any chance I ever had of getting you back."
She just stared at me.

The next morning I woke up and replayed the events of the previous night through my head.
Oh no! Did I...? I didn't..? I did...? Fuuuuck!
It worked. We didn't get back together, and I knew we wouldn't. In fact, she barely spoke to me again.
Result?

So now, when I have a Long Island Iced Tea, I am raising a glass to a night of catharsis and to the best anti-wingman ever, Arwel.