11 First Dates

So a workmate and I decided we would go to a speed dating event. It was to take place on a weekday night and the venue was not far from where we work. The premise of speed dating is you sit with a person for a very short amount of time and talk and get to know each other as much as possible in 5-8 minutes. This particular one gave you 6 minutes to talk with the other person. Six minutes can be either very long or very short. At the end of the evening you turn in a list of who you think you want to see again and they compare it with the others lists and see if there are any matches. The only way they will notify you is if there is a mutual match. That is to say, if you pick the guy and he does not pick you, there is no match. So if none of your men picked you then you get a consolation prize and sent on your merry. They never tell you who was interested in you if you weren’t interested in them.

We arrived in enough time to obtain and adult beverage (or two) and find our way back to the private dining area. The tables were set up so that women would sit on the inside and the men would rotate around the outside. They were those half-booths where one side is a bench and the other a chair. I was situated between my workmate, we’ll call her Hannah for confidentiality purposes, and another lady. My first date was with a guy who wore a suit and tie. He was the only one in a suit and tie. Before we began, I notice that the majority of women were 5’8″ or greater and the majority of men were 5’7″ or lesser. No offense to the vertically challenged males, but most women do not like to feel like a giant gazorp towering over their man. So this was going to be interesting.

As I said, my first date was a bookish looking fellow wearing a suit and tie. He was cordial and friendly, but Hannah thought he was a dork. She would talk to them after I did as they rotated left. The next guy made my jaw drop. I knew him already. This town is entirely too small, I have decided. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I was dating a guy I met at a party, and this guy was with him. They were friends, and still are. Without going into too much gory detail, we were together for around 7 months before he went koo-koo and dumped me to return to his estranged, crazy wife whom he promised me he was going to divorce. Since then a strict “unless there has been a final divorce, they are still married and therefore un-dateable” rule has been in effect in my life. We live and learn, right?

Anyway, this guy, the friend, didn’t recognize me. When he finally did his eyes flew open in recognition and surprise. We talked a bit, he said my ex was still with the crazy wife yet still talks about me realizing what a mistake he made. No duh. I said, well, you get what you settle for. He really needed someone very very dependent and needy and the psycho biatch fit the bill way better than me. I can be needy, but am overall very independent and stubborn and proud to a fault. But now he’s stuck with her and according to the friend his life has been hell. I said on the contrary, since he dumped me my life has been like Astronaut Fantasy Camp. I learned to scuba dive and have been traveling all over to exotic locations like South America and the Caribbean. My career was going very very well, I have a fantastic circle of loyal, fun, interesting friends, and to top it off I look fabulous (according to him, I’m not that conceited). I am sure he’s going to go back and report this to he who dumped me. Yes, gentle readers, living well is the best revenge, though not a type of revenge found too often in opera plots.

So the bell rang and he moved on. After which a series of forgettable dates who would have to be slightly more interesting to merely bore me. If I were to hear “I like to work out, stay fit” one more time I was going to blow my martini right in their face. Puh-leeze. We took a break then came back and my next date was nowhere to be found and we thought the guy bailed. I sat there dateless for a couple of minutes then my troll came scampering in the room with a drink. I looked at his name tag and commented that that was an interesting name and he commenced to explaining to me all about how he came to be named. For five of his six minutes he went on about it. Then the blessed bell rang but the bloke just kept on. I had stopped listening at about 3 minutes and was thinking about when my new scuba gear would arrive and hoped it would be before the 8th of March as that’s when I am going to hit the lake and test it out. One of the organizers had to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to move on. I swear he looked like some sort of Harry Potter character. So now Hannah got to talk to him.

At the end of the evening I wrote down my choices. I wasn’t really interested in any of them as I didn’t find that I had anything in common with them and they weren’t very interesting overall, I am sorry to say. I would do it again for the fun of it, and I certainly don’t take it personally that none of the guys there was very interested in me either. Or at least none that I know of as they don’t tell you.

Next time, a real adventure.
The ScubaJedi