Well I have a speed dating story from someone I.....er....know pretty well
...but I wouldn't say it was successful....
Here's the email that went out to friends from said speed dater.
I apologize for the group email, but I promised to update all of you on my night of speed dating and since I'm trying to get out of the country tomorrow I'm not sure I'll be able to connect with everyone and lord knows I don't want to leave you hanging!
Well, all I can say is it was hysterical! I'll share the gory details with each of you later, but here's the most interesting story of the night. My last "date" of the night is with Matthew, a very, very, good looking Dutch guy. He sits down and looks at me and says in his rich Dutch accent.."should we talk or should we just sit in the silence?...you can learn so much from silence". My first thought was "look we're only talking about 8 minutes here, you can't come up with 8 minutes of conversation?", but I decided to play along, because frankly, I'd been flapping my jaws for the last hour (you all know how I can flap those jaws!) and I was hungry, so I decided to eat my appetizer and look at him as we sat in the silence. This lasted about 30 seconds before it started getting weird. So I broke the spell and asked him a few questions.
Turns out he's a tour director by profession, but his real passion is running men's consciousness groups up in Marin. That's right ladies, he hangs out in the woods of Marin with other men who hug each other and get in touch with their feelings. I asked him what he liked to do and he said "All of my friends are men, I enjoy the company of men, I like to empower men....but I am not gay".....okay.
I asked him what he did for fun and he gave me this perplexed, are you speaking a foreign language look, and says "my life is not like that. I spend my time with my books or in solitude hiking and thinking".....describing this guy as intense is an understatement.
By this time I'm on a roll with a whole lot of questions, which I'm trying to ask without turning into the inquisitor. All of a sudden he stops me and says "you must stop asking questions, I have questions.". So his first question? "How old are you?" When I told him he said "oh, you are old, I like young women because of the possibility of children" I'm thinking "this guy wants to reproduce?" Then he asked me my nationality because "I like exotic women....brown women, black women..."
So he asks, what are you looking for in a relationship and just to mess with him a bit I said "someone who is light hearted and doesn't take themselves too seriously". He drops his head,and with this intense heart-stopping glare says, "I understand". Okay, call me crazy, but I don't think bearing down on me with your eyes focused like a cyclops on my face is the best way to display your light-hearted nature.
Then he asks the mother of all questions "What do you do when you are feeling completely desperate, all seems hopeless, and life has kicked you in the stomach?" My first thought was...ur....sign up for speed dating? But I decided this was not a man to be toyed with so I came up with some pseudo-psychological, new age, ain't I mature answer. I must have said the right thing, because he grabbed my hand and started rubbing the palm while gazing deeply into my eyes...you all know THAT rub!
I asked him if he was feeling my "energy" and he said "yes, your energy is powerful". I extract my hand eventually, but gosh darn it, I forgot that I had the other hand on the table. Pretty soon, he's grabbed that hand and starts stroking it. And he said "Look, I am used to being the aggressor and I want to see you again. I think there's a connection here (who knew looking bewildered and a little scared could make a man feel so connected?). Do you feel it too?" My answer? I said that I was very overwhelmed by the whole experience and that I had never met anyone quite like him and that I needed time to think....think about how to get away that is!
Anywho...well catch up with each of you when I'm back in town.
Now I went to two of these about 5 years ago . . . met a decent guy at one. We exchanged numbers but nothing came of it. The friend who came with me had no success either. Unlike online dating, where I know of a handful of folks who met their spouses that way, I don't know of anyone who has ever had any success with the speed dating thing. Yet, these companies are making money hand over fist. I've got to wonder - do people actually hook up at these things or is it just the biggest moneymaking scheme of all time?
erplexed
