While I
was doing research for the speeddate.com blog, it dawned on me that since I had
already survived a Plenty of Fish Dance, another real life singles event
wouldn't be all that bad. One of my
friends had brought to my attention this company that holds speed dating
sessions at Bossa Nova, so on a whim, I decided to investigate. Convincing my buddy Chuck to come along as a
buffer as well as to engage in what I hoped would be high levels of
entertainment, we pre registered paying $25 dollars for this event, and went in
to it totally blind.
Neither
of us had ever gone speed dating before, and it was almost as if fate was
intervening with the both of us during the week leading up to the event,
because in conversations with each other, it felt like the AT&T speed
dating commercial (the one where the guy tries telling the girl everything he
thinks she wants to hear and she calls him out via his profile) was playing
more frequently leading Chuck and I to believe this was going to be a total
disaster.
I emailed
the event coordinator because I'm a girl, and wanted to know what people wear
to these things. After getting a
response of "I tell everyone to dress as if you are going out on a first
date," I concluded that this lady was about as helpful as a blind man
trying to explain color to a deaf guy. I
was instructed to wear blue in recognition of Autism Awareness, and being that
most of the men that message me on dating websites suffer from undiagnosed
cases of it, I felt it was only appropriate that I comply.
When
Chuck arrived at my house, surprisingly we both were nervous wrecks. The only detail about this event was that it
was: Business Professionals 27-39. Chuck
was worried if he needed to bring his A game, or a harpoon incase he had to go
on a whale hunt, where I was worried if I needed to bring my A game, or fill up
my gas tank in preparation of having someone ask me to drive them home to their
mothers house. Going in to this
completely blind was making my stomach churn, considering with the POF dance, I
knew exactly what I was getting in to.
As we
made our way down to Bossa Nova, my mind started racing. Part of me was hoping that it would be a good
time full of nice people, where the other part of me was hoping it would trump
the POF dance experience and make an excellent blog. Arriving at 6:40 as the event coordinator
requested, Chuck and I mutually decided that we would make our initial decision
of the evening based on when we walked through the door...
Walking
in, we were greeted by the event coordinator, who as I suspected, was cheerful
and positive. Looking around the room,
there were 14 tables set up leading to the discovery that 28 people signed up
for this event. There were only a couple of guys at this point, so Chuck and I
decided to hit up the bar, which would end up being the beginning of the end
for me. 10 minutes after we arrived, I
was still the only girl that was there.
I'm freaking out at this point.
What if I'm the only girl to show up?
Granted it would be like a real life version of the Bachelorette,
however I was most certainly not prepared to take on 1 guy let alone 14. Being in a positive mood, I figured if life
was going to hand me lemons this evening,
for the $7 I was paying for my drinks, the unfriendly bartender better
be filling my cup with enough vodka to get an army drunk.
Finally
other girls started to show up, and I was already 2 drinks and 1 shot deep so
rather than stopping like a normal mature individual who is serious about
dating someone would, I just kept on drinking like a frat boy. I met a very nice girl, who was 38 and didn't
look a day over 25 named Alexa* *names are being changed. She was pretty much in the same boat that I
was in as far as the whole dating scene, and it was as if I was talking to the
10 year future version of myself, which I found comforting. Trying to pass her off to Chuck, and clearly
seeing that she wasn't interested, the 3 of us made are way to our designated
tables, me with not 1 but 2 $7 drinks in hand.
Feeling a bit loosened up, confident and positive for a change, the
rules were explained and away we went.
You get
6 minutes to sell yourself. 6 Minutes to
discover if you are compatible with a person that is bullshitting you with all
of their good qualities that they have to offer, because they are trying to get
you to like them. Maybe this is one of
the many reasons that I am single, but I don't like to bullshit. I refuse to sit and try to convince someone
why I would make a good partner. There's
enough bullshit in politics that I purposely don't follow, so if a stranger is
meeting me for the first time, they are getting the real me.
After
explaining how speed dating works, it was go time. The first date was a little rough. Both of us were new to speed dating, and where
it wasn't awkward, both of us being
virgins to the entire experience, rather than actually getting to know each
other, I dedicated a good 3 minutes on a semi drunken rant about how terrible
Asians are at parking cars. After the first date was over, I was in the
zone. I kept thinking to myself "I
got this" followed by, "where is the waitress with my
beverage."
The
second date was when I started finding my confidence and niche. He was a Dr. starting a residency at a
Pittsburgh hospital. Most girls get lady
wood the minute they realize someone is a Doctor/Lawyer/High Paid individual,
but not me. He really wasn't my type at
all. Instantly thinking of Lam (since she is a
nurse) I played the dating angle with the hopes to get instantly in to the
friend zone. "There aren't any hot
nurses where you work that you can just
boink in the break room?" To which
he replied, "No, not at all."
He then proceeded to tell me how difficult it was in his profession
being a male and trying to get respected.
I literally LOL'ed. Really? It
was at that point that I said to him, "Well you're a Dr., find a plastic
surgeon buddy to give you a vagina and boobs and maybe you will get some
respect." He laughed.
My
third date was a Buffalo transplant who moved to Pittsburgh. He opened up with, "So your name is
Shelby, is your dad a car guy?" In
any other normal situation I would of walked away instantly with a face palm
and not look back. I get I have a unique
name and anything manly that a guy can tie to something such as the name of a
car, boat, or brand of hunting/fishing equipment, however if I had a dollar for
every time I have had that line used on me, I would have about 100 dollars. Slowly drinking myself in to an alcohol
induced coma, it struck a nerve. I
looked at him and without even blinking an eye said, "Oh I see your name
is XXX, where you named after a president?" He chuckled, and we recovered the
conversation to not be awkward for the remaining 5 minutes and 50 seconds.
It was
at this point that things get a little fuzzy for me. I noticed that I had screwed up the sheet
that I was given that allows you to keep track of who you are meeting and
taking notes to remember who is who, so like a 2 year old child, I called out
to the event coordinator whining about how I messed up my sheet, to which she
gave me a new one and I regrouped. After
6 dates they gave us a break, to which I touched base with Chuck to see how he
was doing. We went to the bar to get
another round of drinks, and made our way back up to the singles playground.
For the
record, anyone that is a male and is shorter than me, I consider to be that of
midget like status. My first date off
the break was with a nice shorter gentleman.
He had such a good heart, and I instantly picked up on why he was
single. He was that genuinely
"good" guy type that gets put in to the friend zone because he has no
manly edge. It was as this point that I
told my new found friend about my evaluation of him, to which I told him to
"stop being such a pussy around women." I think I slightly offended him, but I am a
firm believer that alcohol is like truth serum, and I was getting to the point
of becoming an oracle of knowledge. Call
me vain, call me shallow, but romantically, I like men that can protect me in
bar fights, not use me as a shield.
My next
date was with a guy that I could barley pronounce his name because it had 1 too
many syllables for a drunk person speak properly without sounding like they had
a dick in their throat. Rather than
attempting to butcher his name, and seeing that he was slightly as drunk as me,
I asked him if I could call him Simba, considering his real name reflected that
of which I would expect from a Lion King sequel. Boy did he like the sound of his own voice,
and normally being as tipsy as I was, a homeless man could of turned in to a
vagina whisper at that point, my drunken instincts told me that something was
up with this guy, and I decided to play along, talking to him like some dumb
drunk sorortute would, stroking his drunken ego, while entertaining myself at
this whole new level of face to face doucherey.
Unlike
Chuck having a vivid sober memory of every date he went on, I do not. There is
really only one other date that I can remember simply for the fact that this
guy was super intense. He literally
leaned half way across the table invading my personal space and stared me
straight in the eyes as if he was trying to go all mentalist on me. He did not break eye contact whatsoever. He then asked me the most annoying question
that a single person can be asked, "So tell me why are you single?" That also is a question that hits an apparent
drunken nerve with me. I started
carrying on, cursing like a truck driver apparently about how I meet
emotionally retarded men and every time I find someone I like it doesn't work
out and blablabla. I was hoping this
would just instantly turn him off because he was really starting to freak me
out. That is when he looked at me and
said that I was one of the most negative people he has ever met, considering my
abusage of swear words. It was at that
point, that Shelby did her signature move.
I then proceeded to make up an entire story about how I was in a
mentally abusive relationship and that I have severe issues that stem from it,
allowing me not to love myself and that's why I can't love anybody else with a
slight fake tear in my eye. In my
alcohol haze I instantly thought, "Ok this has to work, I hope he thinks I
am unstable." As the bell ran to
end the date, still not breaking eye contact with me he says "Well now
that I know about your past, I would really like to get to know you
better." Shit it didn't work....
There
is one other cloudy memory that I have with a guy that talked about his love of
outdoorsy manly things. He reminded me
of Lance Armstrong considering he would talk about running, working out, and
just listening to him talk about working out felt as if I was in fact working
out. He had mentioned that he wasn't
looking for anything serious at the moment just someone that he could be
"friends" with and go from there.
It was at that moment that I started talking about how many
grandchildren I was hoping to have (totally skipping over my own children) and
the hopes that I would be a GILF one day.
Hoping this would repel him, I tried to get the conversation as awkward
as possible, even going as far as telling him how I want to name my first child
after Ariel the Little Mermaid. It
worked...finally....
Winding
down I was waiting for Chuck to be my date, so that I could break the
seal. Since I was sitting down the
entire time, I was unaware of how drunk I was at that point. Chuck comes over, I stand up, and it hits me
like mushroom stamp to the forehead, I'm pretty tanked. I tell Chuck to hurry up in fear that I may
pee on myself, when not paying attention
to what I was doing because we were walking and talking trying to hurry up to
get back to dating, that I walked right in to the men's room...with Chuck. There was an older man that was a bathroom
attendant. He looked at me with utter
confusion as I walked in, still talking to Chuck. It was at this point that I looked at him and
said "I think I'm drunker than I think I am." The bathroom attendant bursts in to laughter proceeded
to escort me to the Women's room. I
could hear Chuck laughing as I was walking away at what had just happened, and
we hurried back to find out that the event coordinator had paused the event for
us. Chuck and I sat down and began our 6
minute date when out of nowhere, in mid sentence I burped...out loud and
unintentionally, drawing even more unwanted attention to myself to the guy who would be dating me next. The
last time I did this was at Lam's rehearsal dinner, to which my friends scowled
at me, lucky for me, everyone around me at this event laughed and actually
encouraged my lude behavior.
It was
finally over, and it was decision time.
Again trying to keep an open mind, I decided that I would just pick
every guy that I met, to judge how impressionable I am. Upon receiving the results the next morning 9
out of 14 men wanted to date me. Chuck
got 3 girls that wanted to date him.
After
the exhausting dating was over, we migrated our way back over to the bar with
our new found friends. Apparently, I
must be quite the entertainer when I am drinking, considering I had a group of
5 of the speed daters talking to me. Not
that it is any surprise to those of you that have had the privilege of drinking
with me, but I gotta say, that night I was in fact the life of the party. I
started walking around the bar trying to get an after party going. I invited everyone and by that I mean
everyone at the bar to come to Jekyll and Hyde in the South Side regardless of whether
they participated in speed dating or not.
I pretty much had taken over this event, because if I wouldn't of been a
drunken entertaining mess and I was a guy at that event, I would of been pissed
paying 25 dollars.
Me,
Chuck and 3 of our new found friends made our way to Jekyll for some more adult
beverages, karaoke and a Shelby must have...planking. Apparently there are video's of this that I
hope never surface and of me doing drunken Karaoke and grinding on an old man. Chuck
was unaware that these things tend to happen when I am given constant Cherry
Vodka and Cokes. This was Chuck's first
time witnessing the elusive "Drunken Shelby Beast" so I'm very glad
he came out of it unscathed. The next morning, I had already received 3 emails, and 2 Face book requests. I even got an email from the short guy,
telling me that I offended him, to which at this point, I don't exactly
remember how, but I'm sure it had to do with a conversation after speed dating
was over. Even though I apparently
offended him, to date, I have received 5 or 6 emails from him, to which I have
only responded once.
Overall,
would I recommend speed dating? Yes if
you want to meet people, as long as there is alcohol involved. I really did meet some really cool guys. Where most of them I didn't really feel a
spark with, I do think that I earned a badge in being an excellent wing woman,
and I hope I can help a lot of these guys find what they are looking for. They weren't the emotionally retarded guys
like the ones that message me on dating websites, these were mostly guys
looking for relationships, and putting themselves out there which is very
honorable. Unfortunately for me, I did
not find love at Bossa Nova that night, but I did meet an exceptional group of
young business professionals.
-Keeping it real
Shelby
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