When I discovered our Christmas Party was to be held in the grounds of the Manor, my reaction was to decline the invite. My experience of a similar event, back in December 2005 was not great. The medium sized employer I worked for had decided to setup a marquee in the car park / field outside our offices (converted barns just outside Maidenhead). Plus there was a 1970s themed fancy dress element, many of the staff had made an big effort. Just to have your work Christmas do within a thirty second walk of your desk is a big no no in my book. It is a small step from actually having the Office Christmas Party in the office. (As seen famously on the fantastic BBC comedy – The Office).

However, once I knew a few more of the attendees from my team, and the fact many had decided to leave partners at home, I thought this had the potential to be a good night out. To be fair to the event co-coordinators, had gone to a great deal of effort to make this a Christmas Party to remember. There was a Winter Wonderland theme and the marquee had been placed adjacent to the Manor House. When we arrived into the bar area, the main seated area was curtained off. At 8pm sharp, an announcement was made, the band started to play and the curtains were opened to the sounds of Daft Punk – Get Lucky (or was it Pharrell – Happy). Now that was a stroke of genius from somebody planning every little minor detail. We were on table 19 to the side of the stage and by the teas and coffees. Having spent a little time reviewing the table plans in the run up to the event, I had vetted most of the people on the table. Your mind on autopilot, you clear colleagues and then try to decipher unrecognised names as potential partners or plus one guests. I ended up sitting next to Jasmine Accrington. We had met twice before at CA office events, in the past eighteen months of my tenure with the company. The first time was on Tuesday 10th September as we both had been volunteered to run a stall at the company’s first ever UK Freshers Fayre. We spoke for less than a few minutes, introducing ourselves and lamenting the fact that our stalls had been kept to different sides of the restaurant. It would be 296 days before we would meet again at a charity event outside on the grounds in July of this year. We were walking 5k around the grounds of Ditton Park, as we had done in August last year. On this occasion, Jasmine was walking at a slow pace with her boss (maybe four to five paces behind me) only for them both to beat me at the final straight, as they decided to sprint to the finish line.

One hundred and fifty one days after that, I was sitting next to Jasmine at my work Christmas do, wondering where the year had disappeared to. However I made the rookie mistake of getting a lady’s age incorrect. In my defense, I was only one calendar year out but according to Jasmine, 12 months is a long passage of time. Of course it is, but based on meeting somebody three times and the very limited amount of dialogue, I believed I had made a well educated guess. I was wrong and she was not going to let me forget about it in a hurry.

Friendships are delicate entities, which at times we can take for granted. Having been through a difficult time, it has only been recently that I have reconnected with old flames and started to make plans for exciting adventures in 2015. However that does not mean I should neglect building lasting relationships with new people, particularly in my working circle. It is strange how you can feel about somebody after three rather brief forced engagements, to a more casual informal approach over IM, e-mail and subsequently SMS and Whats App. You realise that there is more to that person than you had originally thought. You were foolish to make a judgement on those three separate isolated interactions. They have multiple dimensions you had never considered and surprise you when you have some much common ground.

For far too long I have neglected the friendship circles around me and I am doing my best to right this wrong in the coming year. However, this does not mean I will stop making an effort to meet new interesting and exciting people that bring not just sunshine into my life, but inspire me to re-consider all my future options. Having them part of my life, not only brings me great value and joy, they make me happy because they are happy and if I have to end with the cheesiest of corny lines, let that be it.