Random speed dating guy asks, “So why are you wearing all
black?”
I reply, “Obviously because my husband just died!” And
then I laugh maniacally.
I changed shirts.
I was the first person to arrive. Total keener. In my
defense, the email had stressed punctuality. “Be there at 7!! Sharp!!!”
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an
insane mind. (Terry Pratchett)
Not that my mind was any better. I was stupidly anxious.
I kept forgetting to breathe. I got my nametag and speed dating sheet and sat
at the bar. World Baseball Classic highlights provided an engrossing
distraction.
A couple of guys came in and got their nametags. I didn’t
turn to look. With only a peripheral glimpse, I quickly judged and dismissed
them based entirely on appearance. They both appeared to be on the upper end of
the age spectrum, almost to the point where I would want to check ID. I
wondered how old I looked in the dim light of the bar. Maybe I’d already been
written off too.
A woman arrived and I smiled at her, not sure if I was
supposed to feel like we were in competition with one another, or if we were
cohorts on this ridiculous adventure together. Given the sidelong look she gave
me, I’m guessing the former. Oh well.
 |
| Beatrice wasn't much of a wrestler, but you should have seen her box! |
A pair of young women showed up together and they were
full of nervous energy. They joined me at the bar, and though I’d been there
for a solid five minutes (my cloak of invisibility had probably kept the
bartender (Hester) from asking me if I wanted anything) the bartender appeared and offered them a drink. They got beers, and she walked away before I could ask for a whiskey. I chatted with the new
arrivals and we laughed together until my two girl friends appeared.
Andy, Jo and I visited animatedly for a while. Hester got
them drinks, but staunchly ignored my presence. I decided to find it funny. We
laughed about it and other things, we talked about volleyball and dating and
work. A brave soul approached us and tried to join our conversation. He was
rather out of his depth, but through a stilted series of segues he clumsily
told us he works downtown, had just bought a swanky new apartment on the top
floor of a five storey building, and wants to buy a mansion up on the hill one
day (no, we hadn’t asked). He was a confident speaker of English as a foreign
language; he was not impossible to understand, but quite difficult to hear over
the dull, low music and the busy hum of conversations all around us. I tried to
politely return to chatting with my friends, whose conversation I found far
more interesting (exactly why I am single). *shot* He eventually moved over to
the appetizers, which were plated precariously at Jo’s elbow.
I was still too wired to relax. The organizer got
everyone’s attention by tapping on the side of her plastic cup. The sound was
not loud, I barely heard it, yet it was somehow effective. I guess we were all
waiting for it. Conversation died immediately and the host spoke out into a
nervously charged silence. She explained that because women outnumbered men,
there would be times when you didn’t have a date. Guys get 11, girls get 9.
Rotate after 7 minutes. This information got repeated a few times in different
terms, but that was the gist and entirety of it.
9 men.
- According to an Adverse Events Study, one in nine adults will potentially be given the wrong medication or medication dosage.
- A helpful STD poster at my doctor’s office told me that one in nine men have genital HSV-2 herpes.
- One in nine men have experienced domestic violence.
- One in nine Canadians drop out of high school.
- 1.3 in nine (yup, I have decimals and I sorta know how to use them) adults live with ischemic heart disease.
- According to Tumblr, 10 out of 9 men have reported being in the “friendzone” because, priorities.
Not sure how I feel about my odds.
I got a break and I took copious notes while trying not
to eavesdrop on Rajendra’s conversation with the girl in the corner beside me.
Or on the guy currently talking to Jo, who I would meet in a few minutes.
He asked if I would be doodling pictures of
all of my dates. I imagined drawing him, with his slightly protruding eyes,
curly hair and inherent creepiness. I also thought of how I would draw him,
where I would start with a sketch of David Cameron, then give him curly hair
and slightly more protuberant eyes. I thought this was a funny mental picture
and smiled. In reply, I said something evasively positive and he made fun of
how enthusiastic I seemed about doodling. I nervously played with my beaded bracelets.
The most surprising person he has ever interviewed was a
photographer who went diving with sharks. David was amazed that when he asked
the photographer about whether or not he’d been afraid, the photographer told
him that he had simply known that the sharks did not care about him and that it
was perfectly safe.
We began.
I poured myself a glass of water and found a table beside
Jo. She was cut off from me by a large pillar, and so really the only person
nearby was the glaring girl who’d arrived just after me. She was propped up in
the corner, like a monarch holding court. I smiled at her.
“First time?” She asked me, in a bored tone.
“Yup, and I’m freaking out a bit.”
“You’ll be fine.” Easy for her to say, she was the disdainful
valium to my caffeine overdose.
And away we go!
Date 20 - Junius
I totally blanked on what to say. What do people say to
other people? On a scale of 1 to 10, how rude is it to ask someone where they
are from? 9? Instead I asked him if he’d ever been to an event like this
before. He had. I asked how it went. Stupidly. If it had gone really well, he
wouldn’t still be single and speed dating, would he? Idiot. Instead of getting
offended, or understanding the question, he explained the same process to me
that the host had just outlined. Ok. Well, that knocked off a couple of
minutes.
He asked me what I did for a living. I answered. There
were no follow-up questions, so I asked him the same question. Junius is an
engineer. He worked in oil and gas, but is now working for the government doing
something with taxes. The office building where they used to be didn’t have
enough space, so they built a new one six years ago, and that is why he is does
not work downtown (I hadn’t asked).
He volunteered that he is from Sri Lanka. I asked him
what it was like there, because I couldn’t come up with anything better, and he
was on such a roll. Apparently it’s tropical.
Next!
Date 21 - Rajendra
From the moment that “Lucky Number 17” sat down, Rajendra
peppered me with questions in a thickly-accented monotone. It was as though he
was reading from a list that was pasted to the wall above my left ear.
Is it your first time here?
What do you do?
What sort of music do you like?
What do you do for fun?
Where are you from?
He mentioned that he liked my glasses. He had a pair
hanging from the collar of his shirt, they reminded me of Milton from Office Space. I couldn’t decide which of
his eyes to look at.
Why did you come here?
I told him about the 40 Date Challenge. He did not react.
Time’s up.
Ok. Breathe.
I got a break and I took copious notes while trying not
to eavesdrop on Rajendra’s conversation with the girl in the corner beside me.
Or on the guy currently talking to Jo, who I would meet in a few minutes.
Next!
Date 22 - Pierre
I’d overheard him talking about teaching to Jo, so I
didn’t bother to ask Pierre what he did for a living. I asked what he did for
fun instead. This backfired, because it turns out that what he does for a
living is what he does for fun. Theatre. He used to teach, but now everything is
theatre. I asked him about the venues he works at, and found that we have an
acquaintance in common: Kirk (see Whiskey with Kirk). Small world.
He asked me about my glasses and about what I like to
write, so I think I did way more talking with Pierre than any of the others so
far. But there was no real interest, and less than no attraction. Better than
nothing, I suppose.
Next!
Date 23 - Kim
Kim was the guy who had tried to jump in on the conversation
that Jo, Andy and I were having. He talked non-stop for about seven minutes. He
talked about his passion for dance, and the dance community, about his ideal
vacation, about why he doesn’t go for the standard tourist spots and
all-inclusive resorts. He also mentioned that he liked my glasses before returning
to his stream of consciousness rambling. I was starting to feel self-conscious about my
glasses. This was the third guy to talk about them. They were green, and I guess
the only remarkable thing about me.
Thank god.
Another break, and then intermission. I laughed and joked
with Jo and Andy, which was a nice change. We lamented that both of our no-date
breaks had been used up, and it was only the halftime show. There were jokes
about sabotaging each other’s dates and hoarding the appetizers. I think our
intermission was about 20 minutes, but it seemed to go by faster than any one
of the dates so far. Maybe it was that I was comfortable with the girls (though
I honestly don’t know Andy very well), but it was a stark contrast to stilted
conversations with strangers (probably why I'm single) *shot*. At least laughing felt good.
Oh buggar, back to it.
Next!
Next!
Date 24 - Kelsey
Kelsey had a cosmopolitan air. He was lean, with a shaved
head and a nice smile. He asked me how the break had gone; I told him I’d
enjoyed chatting with my girls. We talked about what I enjoy (volleyball) and
what he enjoys (surfing in the river), we talked about beach volleyball and how
great summer will be. Conversation flowed a little more smoothly, and I
wondered if I was finally getting the hang of this.
Next!
Next!
Date 25 - Geoffrey
And then along came Geoffrey. Something about him gave me
a vague sense of menace and set off little subconscious warning signals across
the back of my neck. He commented on the fact that I have a notebook, and I
explained (defensively) that I’m a writer.
 |
| Text just reads: "Ok, so the suit is all Cameron" |
In a strange impression of a cold-reading fake psychic at
the fair, he told me that I had lots of friends, and that one of them gave me those
bracelets (I bought one, one came free in a swag bag at a beach volleyball tournament, and was given the other by my sister-in-law). He told me
it was my first time at speed dating, and that I was nervous. I asked him if he
was just guessing things at random.
Then he started asking/telling me about my friends (who
doesn’t like their friends?), my family (mine is big, and yet small, so he was right no
matter what he said), my glasses (again with the damn glasses) were not given to me by anybody (Who buys somebody glasses?). His focus was on me, but not in such a way
that he seemed interested in me as a person, rather it felt wholly impertinent. Just a way for
him to show off. And when I returned every question to him, “And what about
you?” he refused to tell me anything about himself.
“No, I want to learn about you.”
“There is no parity in that.” Not sure why I used the
word parity. It wasn’t even the exactly right word for how I felt (fairness); I
think I just wanted to throw him a curve ball.
“I know what that means.”
Ok. This was more than subtly aggressive. I took a sip of
water.
He sat up and I thought he was going to walk away. He reached
over to Jo’s table, and retrieved a water glass. I made a joke that he had just
stolen the water, though it was pretty obvious it was his and that he’d
forgotten it.
Maybe in exchange for the joke, he decided (out loud)
that he would tell me one thing about his family. He told me about his
grandmother, who is very flirtatious with the male residents and staff at her
nursing home.
I told him about working with the elderly back when I
assisted the director of recreation and wound up playing a lot of cards. He
asked if I knew the card game Wizard. I did. He declared that my life was complete.
I joked that I had met the Buddha in Taiwan and had been told that I would
achieve a state of completeness, but I hadn’t realized it would involve a card
game. Unwilling to laugh, he asked me to describe my parents in five words. I
did: young, wry, vivacious, sarcastic and learned.
“You’re clever, aren’t you?” He asked me, with his lip
curled and his eyes narrowed. I’d always thought clever was a compliment.
Then he demanded that I draw him something, but thank all
of the gods on Olympus, our time was up.
Saved by the bell
Next!
Date 26 - David
David was an accountant. He was also a journalist. He was
another speaker of English as a foreign language, and he also looked slightly
to my left as we spoke.
He told me about how skilled he was at conducting
interviews, but asked me precisely zero questions about myself. Then he
complimented my glasses.
Ri-goddamned-diculous
Next!
Date 27 – Fernando
Fernando was from Cuba, apologized profusely about his
English skills and smiled a lot. He would lose confidence in himself
mid-sentence or whenever I tried to supply a word that he was searching for. His
constant refrain when he was flustered was to apologize and then tell me that I
have to ask him things. I wanted to explain that he could avoid running out of
things to say by asking simple questions and just listening to the other
person, but it was not my lesson to teach.
Still, Fernando was perfectly nice, enjoys samba dancing,
oldies rock music, and singing in his shower.
Next!
Date 28 - Fidel
By far the best, and last. I am pretty certain that Fidel
was there in a show of support for his friend Fernando. He was far too
easygoing to be there in a serious capacity. He was also Cuban, very
good-looking and spoke English with confidence. Due to a weird glitch, we got
two dates combined into one, so an extra seven minutes to chat. Fidel does
something involving logistics and drives for Uber in his spare time. He
recently bought a house, so we talked about that for a while. Then he asked a
number of questions about me (not in a Robotic Rajendra or Predatory Geoffrey way,
but like one person just involving the other in the conversation). It was
refreshing.
Done!
I thanked the host and submitted my match sheet where I’d
indicated that Kelsey and Fidel could be potential matches for me. Mostly
because an entire sheet of “No” just seemed mean. (Update: they did not reciprocate, so I received zero matches at my first (and probably last) speed dating experience.) Jo, Andy and I left together,
with Kim attempting to tag along and convince us to go dancing on a Wednesday
night. Still intrepid. I was exhausted. I definitely wanted to de-brief with
the girls and find out whether they too suspected that Geoffrey’s mother’s taxidermied
corpse is wearing a paisley nightgown in a rocking chair in his parlour, but I
was too tired. I just wanted to go home and try not to have nightmares about
it.
I ran into Kelsey on the corner as I walked to my car. He
told me it had been nice meeting me. I replied politely and honestly and then ran to
my car.
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