Speed Merchant

This week’s Guy’s Story comes to us from my twitter friend TurnJacson. You should check out his blog, The fantastical ramblings of a chronic over-thinker.  It’s pretty awesome.

Speed Merchant

In an attempt to put myself in front of as many single girls as possible, I dreamed up a scheme to break into an all girls dorm… After assessing the legal ramifications of that action I decided it be better to go with Plan B, Speed Dating.

This is the summary of my night!

I had no clue what to expect and decided it would be a good idea to go by myself as a way to force myself to talk to people and not stay in my comfort zone. I arrive at the speed dating venue and it’s basically a picture perfect replication of your Jr. High dance. The guys are standing around not really talking, the girls are in groups talking to each other as they scoop out the fellas. I sign-in and have an internal conversation with myself on whether or not talking to a girl before we actually start the speed dates would be frowned upon. (Didn’t want to give myself the inside track on my competition, I want it to be a fair fight) Alas after the third swig of my drink I was getting exponentially bored-er. (<- not really a word) So I went up to this nice girl and started chit-chatting, we basically killed time before the question fest started.

Ding, Ding, Ding – The bell rang and we had to take our seats, basic format was guys rotate as girls sit stationary. Eight minutes with each girl, 7 girls in total… appetizers to follow as we all mingle.

Girl #1 – An elementary school teacher who has always lived in the city’s north side, like me she recently took up golf, liked to go camping but hadn’t been in a while. She loves kids, not really a party animal… she definitely came across as someone who was homely and ready to start the next phase of her life. (Not that there is anything wrong with that)

Girl #2 – Was my friend from earlier in the night and since we basically talked already for 20 mins we decided it would be prudent to try to make it through the list of “icebreaker” they had laid out on the table as fast as we could. Unfortunately we didn’t as one conversation led to another and the tangents ended up taking us away from the icebreaker list. Anyways this girl was well-traveled but that clearly lent itself to the fact that she was unsure of what she wanted to do with her life. She was between jobs and might have said like about 20 times.

Girl #3 – In a word quirky but out of the 7 girls I sat down with, she was the one I think actually had a very similar style of wit as me. She was widely entertaining but unfortunately there was no attraction, she did show me her imaginary ball dance. This girl was one of the three speech pathologist that decided to check out what speed dating had to offer.

Girl #4 – Was the second speech pathologist, no offense to blonds out there but she was your typical blond. A touch high maintenance and not as mentally stimulating as her friend, but we had a good laugh. One of the funnier parts of the night was when me and Girl 4 started talking about the epic speech pathologist dance parties, to which Girl 3 joined our conversation… It was a little awkward for the guy at Girl 3′s table but we all had a good laugh. (Except for him)

Girl #5 – Don’t know how to describe this date because we had nothing in common, she made a couple of comments that made it clear that she swimming in the deep end of desperation. Whereas I’m clearly in the wading pool just dangling my feet in water to check the temperature. She scared me a little… like she’d be waiting for me in the parking lot, hit me over the head with a shovel and put me in the trunk of her car… a little!

Girl #6 – Out of all the girls I was probably the most physically attracted to Girl 6 but there was a couple of flags. She was finishing up drink number three and had another on the way, (not that I’m opposed to drinking but that’s almost a drink every 10 mins) first question she asked was if I was a player, which led to us talking about her dating a black guy that might have step out on her. (FYI – We aren’t all the same) She swore a lot… that stuck out as well. So although we had a good time, I realized talking to her was more like talking to one of the guys. She also hated classical music and scoffed at the fact that I liked it.

Girl #7 – Was a nice East Indian girl who was also the third and final speech pathologist. She was really shy but once we got to the racial jokes she found comfort in making fun of her people. She let me in on the fact that her and her friends had made a list of questions incase things got dicey and the conversation was lacking. Luckily none of them had to use it on me so I took it as a compliment.

After we had finished we all gathered around and chatted, I was corralled by the three speech pathologist and didn’t have a chance to mingle with the other 4 girls but I was okay with that. We were having a pretty funny conversation. (Apparently there’s a video on YouTube of a guy the chases animals to death)

As I left that night I decided it would be a good idea to at least select one girl for a second date, there was no point in me doing this exercise without seeing what was further down the rabbit hole. So I checked off Girl #6 but I found out she didn’t pick me. (Don’t feel bad for me… 5/7 wanted a second date so my ego is just fine) So although I didn’t get a date out of it, I would recommend speed dating to anyone.

Look at it this way, it’s like the gym… we have to force ourselves to go, we get there and do numerous repetitions… some are great, some are not so great but when you leave you always feel good about yourself.

P.S. – I was feeling so good that on the drive home I was speeding with no seatbelt on… total damage of the ticket! $276!!