My friend, Danny

Late in my undergraduate career at the University of Sheffield, I made a new friend, Danny. The circumstances of our meeting were somewhat unusual, as was the development of our friendship over the course of those summer months of 2005. Now uncontactable by any method, I often think of Danny, and wonder what he is up to.

As mentioned, we met in the unlikelist of circumstances.

I was returning to my Sheffield home after a pleasant evening with a lady-friend. At the same time, another young man was also returning to his residence. This inebriated young man, in contrast to my sober, teetotal self, gestured to me from the other side of the road.

My first reaction was one of curiousity about this individual. Concluding that he was strange but harmless, I crossed the road.

Despite being around midnight, and on his own, the young man wanted to know about whether anywhere remained open at that time of night for further entertainment. With my more-or-less adequate knowledge of the city, I was happy to inform him that West Street might be his best bet, if he was content to take a taxi. Then I remembered Rileys, the pool/snooker venue around the corner, and made known to him this information.

Not yet feeling ready to go home and have a hot cup of cocoa, I warmly accepted his suggestion of a few frames of pool. Thus began a unique friendship.

It all seemed rather a strange situation, when I recalled the events of the previous night to my amused house mates. A few of them were to come across the physical presence of Danny, but only momentarily, and there was never an occasion when he accompanied us to rileys, the pub, the union or anywhere else. This was, of course, partly because of the time in which we met, that it was close to the end of my undergraduate years, rather than the beginning. I, likewise, knew none of Danny's friends. Our communications thus become solely with one another, especially when we both remained in our university city over the summer whilst my house-mates returned home.

It wasn't really until uni had officially finished that Danny and I began our friendship. We met up for drinks on a more regular basis, and frequented Millenium - (a budget fast-food haunt, notorious for negligent hygiene standards but famous for the cheapness of its burgers) - in the early hours of the morning.

He was a highly intelligent character, and street-wise with it. But another abiding memory of Danny was his seeming inability to organise himself, financially, occupationally, and most importantly, educationally. His need for money took precedence over university, to the inevitable detriment of his studies.

I have mentioned to a friend that the time in which I knew Danny reminded me of the scenario in the classic film, Fight Club, mainly in the way Edward Norton meets Brad Pitt and their subsequent relationship. The chief characterists I felt were:

- Most of our associations were at night time.
- All of our associations were only in one another's company

To explain this second point, Fight Club's dialogue revolves around Norton and Pitt - they do, of course, have contact with outside individuals, seen in the actual fight club of the film's name, and in the derivative 'Project Mayhem' - but the centrality of Norton and Pitt is never called into doubt by these external characters. Similarly, wherever Danny and I went, there would obviously be people, but people without a direct or social connection to Danny or myself. I've probably drawn the analogy out too much!

One major problem of this comparison was that two of my friends could bear witness to having seen Danny, which confirmed his existence as a real person. Needless to say, Danny was not merely my alter-ego. Nevertheless, there was a sense of strangeness about the whole situation, given the circumstances of how we met, but also how Danny's background always remained unverifiable.

I knew what part of the country Danny was from; I knew what he had been studying at university - I knew these things - in so far as I had no reason to disbelieve what he told me. But I did not know him from a work-orientated capacity, a student-based one (we went to the same university, but had no educational connection), or as a friend of a friend - this meant that there was no verification of the person. It was therefore rather surreal. At least thats how its felt to me.

I lost contact with Danny after moving to a region far from away Yorkshire. I have since tried, in a number of different ways, to locate this mysterious person, but in vain. His mobile number has long since become unrecognisable; an attempt at a personal visit was unsuccessful when I learned that he had moved from the property that he had lived in.

I am, however, optimistic that I will find Danny. The manner in which I will do so just remains unknown.