Sunday 3 October 2010

It's a Girl - Boy Thing

Taking advantage of a quiet week in September, I decided it was time to explore the possibilities of a speed dating night again. I stand by my earlier comment when I said that I quite enjoy going to these (though I'm not a regular of course...) It's not every day (it's hardly any day) that you're face to face with about 20 different single, eligible bachelors and surely this can never be a bad thing.

Once we'd registered for the event, collected our name badges, note cards and pens, we headed towards the other side of the room, ready to place our order for a couple of much needed drinks. A few minutes later, I sat alone across the bar, taking a sip from my mojito whilst eyeing up my friend's raspberry flavoured cocktail and contemplating what my next drink should be. As the door by my side opened, letting in a cool breeze from the evening outside, I looked up and saw a tall, dark haired guy walk in. He looked at me and smiled before making his way over to where I sat. "Hi." I said, returning his smile. "Hi." He replied. "So, do you come here often?" I tried to keep a straight face, but I couldn't help but laugh. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised to bump into an old friend at one of these events - it was bound to happen some time! On the plus side, at least we both knew that there was going to be at least one normal person sitting on the opposite side of the table. We talked a little about the strangeness of such nights and joked about the kind of conversations we would have. I suggested I try to start off my 'dates' by asking where I would be taken on our honeymoon and he was planning to tell each girl that he trained dolphins for a living. Soon enough, an announcement was made and we were all asked to take our seats. My (girl) friend and I moved to the end of the room and made ourselves comfortable - a quick scan of the male daters gave me a feeling that it was going to be a long night - no matter how open minded I planned to be!


The Boys

The first dater that I sat across was a surgeon. This is the first thing that he told me and I instantly found myself comparing him to Grey's Anatomy's McDreamy - no comparison, but I was still quite impressed. A surgeon - that's pretty hot. He then went on to tell me that he was too busy for a relationship, but he felt as though it was time he found himself a wife and started a family. I nodded as he spoke and slightly cursed myself for thinking this time would be better than the last. The bell finally rang and as he moved from my table to the next, I looked at my friend and quietly wished her good luck.

Thankfully the few daters that followed weren't all bad. Some were quite interesting, some funny and some a little too friendly. As the bell rang twice, indicating that we were half way through the night, we found ourselves talking to the one of the last guys that we met. He seemed quite nice and conversation seemed to be flowing well. That was until, in what I believe was a slightly drunken state, he managed to tip his glass and pour beer all over my friend's lap. Needless to say, neither of us were very impressed as he didn't even apologise and walked away, head down in shame, to the other side of the room.

During the second half of the night, things seemed to pick up a little. Putting aside the guy who went on about the difficulties of finding a vegetarian girl, the guy who looked at me in disgust when I admitted that my red coloured drink did have alcohol in it (why would it not?!) and the man (I say man because I'm sure he passed the age limit of 35 and realistically was reaching 50) who tried to hold my hand, there were a couple of potentially interesting blokes. One that took my eye in particular was someone who looked strangely familiar to me. I guess the problem with meeting people on a night out, being introduced to half the Indian population and being distantly related to the other half, makes it a bit difficult not bumping into people I feel as though I've seen before. Luckily I wasn't going completely mad and he said the same thing to me. We spent a couple of seconds trying to figure out where we knew each other from, but with not much luck, we ended up spending the remaining two minutes talking about nothing in particular and I found myself giggling like a little school girl - I think I had just met my first and only 'tick worthy' guy of the evening.

At the end of the night, after handing in our note cards and pens, I walked up to my friend and looked at him questionably. "So.." I said. "What's my competition like?"

The Girls

Okay, so this is the point where my aforementioned friend was supposed to supply me with interesting and funny stories about all the single girls he 'dated' that night. I probably should've managed my expectations because instead of humourous little tales, the only thing I got was empty promises that he would deliver and the confirmation that boys lie.

All I do know is that whilst scanning the room to check out the competition, I definitely think that today's boys should count their blessings - because there are a hellava lot of hot single girls out there ready to be swept off their feet! Right girls?!

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