01/10/03’s illustrious band:

Playing With Matches

Brought to you by the Soup Group and Company, who sponsored my speed dating foray last night.

I am pleased to report an OK night. I encountered no knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing geekazoids. No body odor, no rudeness, no drunks. No pressure. It was actually kind of fun. It was reassuring just to learn that there are at least 18 single, heterosexual, age-appropriate men living in the metro area. I had begun to wonder.

The evening proceeded pretty much as expected. Thirty-eight participants paid the $35 fee at the door -- thanks, Soup Group! -- and collected our nametags and packets containing a dating card, a note page and a comment/feedback page for the event organizers. I was Bachelorette #11, so I sat down at the appropriate table and waited for the dating to begin.

When the wind chimes jangled, one of the 18 nervous men sat down opposite me and we started chatting. After 7 minutes, the chimes sounded again, the women remained seated and the men moved on. I scribbled furiously on my note page between visitors. There would be a total of only 9 official dates throughout the evening, so if I wanted to meet one of the other 9 guys, I had a chance to do so during the halftime break and “open dating” time at the end.

I ended up talking to eight men whom I would not flee if they sat down next to me at a party and one whom I’d ditch as soon as he revealed that he had attended a Godzilla convention. Given my own attendance at sci-fi cons, perhaps this makes me a hypocrite. However, I have changed my hairstyle and wardrobe since 1982, and I prefer a fellow who does the same.

I met an attorney, a physician’s assistant, a sports merchandising salesman, a high school librarian, a computer systems manager, an advertising sales consultant, a UPS shipping agent. One liked salsa dancing; one had lived in Hawaii, China and Japan, among other places; one lived for Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. All of them were interesting in one way or another, and all of them seemed nice.

Two of them seemed particularly nice, so I circled Yes next to their names in the “Date this person again?” column on my dating card. I ended up talking further with one of them during the open social time at the end of the night. I wished for a chance to approach a tall cutie in a white shirt who hadn’t ended up at my table, but I never quite made it to his side of the room. So I turned in my dating card with yes/no choices marked, along with my comment card, and headed home.

My only big complaints about the night concerned the facility where the event was held rather than the event itself. The dating service had reserved a small bar/nightclub connected to a restaurant, and once our allotted time was up, the bar was open to the public. Several people began smoking, which should be banned in all public spaces without exception, and a DJ started blasting music at earsplitting levels, making conversation very difficult. These are reasons 1 and 2 why I go to bars so rarely in the first place, and they hastened my exit considerably. I jotted those thoughts down for the organizers.

This morning I received a call from the service. Of the two men I yessed, one had yessed me back, so we had a match. I was given his phone number, and he was soon to receive a call from the service with my phone number (and those of anyone else he matched with). My match was Jason the sports merchandiser, the guy I’d talked to after the main event. If he invites me out again, I will probably accept. I don’t know how many other guys may have yessed me while I noed them; the service doesn’t tell.

So there you have it. I think I got the Soup Group’s money’s worth, along with a very good cosmopolitan in a funky cocktail glass. I’d probably do it again in a few months if I had nothing else going on. Coming away with no horror stories after all this buildup was almost anticlimactic.

FYI for Bloglet subscribers

Here’s something that has tripped a few people up, including me.

If you have subscribed to the BND blog -- signed up to have it e-mailed to you -- remember that the messages containing the band names come from the Bloglet subscription service, not from me. So if you’ve clicked the “reply” button to respond to one of those messages, your response went to Bloglet, not to me.