(For once I’m going to try writing a blog post about one singular event and not some generic-ized version of what generally happens around me, so be prepared. I know my generally terrible memory isn’t.)
Hey look, it’s only been like three months instead of the six it was between my last two posts! Let’s give one half-hearted cheer for what barely passes as improvement! Hip-hip!…eh.
So, now that my sophomore year of college has wrapped up with barely a blog post to its name, what do I have to say? Something insightful about what it means to be done with my second year of college? How I’ve changed as a person since then? How the future is a great big unknown that’s a little frightening at times? Nope, nothing like that at all.
Two (one? can it be hyphenated?) words: speed dating.
I suppose I should first say that I have been single for basically the whole semester. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been eager to jump at any opportunity to get a girl. No, I’ve been just fine with waiting to find someone who seems worth it, and, well, is interested in me too. But then, one slightly uneventful Friday, I was told of this speed dating event going down at the University’s student union. You know, that building where every University-sponsored event happens on campus (and apparently looks like a Gopher?).
Anyway, I hear about this event, and while speed dating as a concept is mildly interesting, I would normally find it too awkward to probably bother with. Buuuuut, here’s the thing: they were offering a $100 restaurant certificate for one winning couple. This caught my attention. $100? That restaurant is pricey, but not that much. That’s at least more than one date’s worth of food money. And hey, who says it has to be for a date? Why couldn’t I go to this with a female friend of mine, we rig the game, end up as the winning couple, and make it a night on the town with our friends? A hundred bucks? Drinks all ar-I mean, food’s on me tonight, guys!
Ok ok, I can hear the judgement coming from some of you. “Really? You say you’re going speed dating just to try winning some money? And you don’t even know how they’re picking this “winning couple” or anything? You’re full of shit. You just want to meet desperate girls, you desperate….desperate man-child.” Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but alright, fine, maybe I did want to try my luck at meeting at least one girl I might want to go on a date with. It’s not like this is worse than something like online dating sites or Timber or whatever it is kids these days use. At least this way we actually meet in person. No hiding anything here. No lies, no tricks….wait. No, that’s not true. How could I forget?
So, my friends (all girls) and I get there like 5-10 minutes beforehand and we’re basically the first ones there. …great. Well, I enter a bit before them and act as if I don’t know them. I sit down at a two-person table, like they’re all set up, and mind my own business. Soon enough though, this guy one table away starts chatting me up. He seems friendly enough, so I oblige him and we have some idle chit-chat. He talks about how he has a twin and stuff…that’s about all I can remember since everything else about the conversation was pretty boring to be honest. All I remember about him is how fake his friendliness came off as. Or maybe he was just creepy. Eh. Anyway, what’s-his-face couldn’t possibly beat out the guy that came next. Fucking Vladimir.
Well, I should really say “Vladimir.” Vladimir wasn’t the guy’s real name. I didn’t realize it at the moment, but I knew this smart-ass from before. He was the wise guy with the English sort of accent from my class last semester. He was “that guy” that sits up front and asks questions or gives responses that nobody wants to hear. “JUST SHUT UP” is what everybody thinks of this guy. “EVEN THOUGH NONE OF US ARE PAYING ATTENTION TO THE PROFESSOR, WE STILL DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOU.” But yeah, the guy’s already established himself as annoying. But I didn’t realize that at the time. I was just going to be courteous to him and get to know him. He asks if he can sit, I say sure, and then he asks whether this is where the guy-to-guy people sit. Ooook, I guess I’m really going to get to know this guy, huh? But no, when he realizes that nobody at the event is a guy looking for a guy, he freaks out and scrambles about feeling like a fool for coming to something like this with nobody for him. Jeez, c’mon Vladdy, what’d you expect? I know our campus has lots of gay and bi guys, but I still wouldn’t expect them to come to something like this.
Oh, but how do I know this guy’s “name?” Simple, I gave it to him. He came to sit down with me again after his miniature freak-out, and he told me his name. I’m pretty sure my hearing is slowly going the way of my dad’s and I didn’t hear him clearly. So I repeated what I thought he said, “Vladimir?” And then, he stops and looks off to the side. You can tell by his shit-eating expression that he’s thinking to himself, “yeah…Vladimir…that’s a cool name. Let’s go with that!” And then he turns back to me and, wouldn’t you know it, says, “Yeah! That’s right! Vladimir! I’m such a bitch, aren’t I?”
Wait, no, he didn’t say that last bit. But his face said it so I’m technically not making anything up, sooooo let’s just leave that there.
So let’s move past V-lad here and to the actual speed dating. It…wasn’t exactly what I expected and yet exactly what I expected. I mean, I was hoping for at least some freaking name tags, but I guess that’s not a thing anymore. Instead, we were given sheets of paper with spots to put down the names of the people we meet, and then we were supposed to rate them on a scale of 1-5 with I think 5 being the best rating and 1 being the worst. There were also some lines to write whatever we wanted about them. Anyway, the speed dating went fairly well. We got about 5 or so minutes to talk to each person and then moved one table to the right. Thing was, I didn’t want to write the number in front of the person I was talking to since they would see and that’s just embarrassing (I don’t want anyone to know how I actually feel about them!). So, I kinda had to multitask as I met each person, since I was trying to absorb info about them, be interesting, AND evaluate the person that came before me. …maybe that’s why I didn’t end up remembering almost anyone’s name after that night.
“But wait Matt, didn’t you have the names and ratings of everyone you talked to? You had a sheet and everything!”
Well, that’s what you’d think, right? NOPE. The sheets were turned in at the end to pick the winning couple and were never seen again. What. The. Hell. That wouldn’t have even been a problem if we got to mingle and chit-chat with our favorites afterward, but guess what? Everyone was forced to sit down and listen to a bunch of people play parody music on a stage for like an hour and a half until we were finally relinquished and given free food. By then, every girl I had interest in had left.
Why didn’t I leave when they left? Simple, because I had to stay to hear which couple won the gift card, which didn’t happen until AFTER the band played for the length of some movies! And here’s the biggest kicker of all. Do you wanna know who won? Are you SURE you want to know? Oh, what’s it matter, you know by now who won. Thaaaaat’s right. Fucking. Vladimir.
The guy that wasn’t even into women, the guy that lied to every girl he talked to that night (I found out from my friends afterward that he gave all of them really bull-shitty info that changed from person to person), and the guy who didn’t even use his real freaking name won the money along with a girl I know. Fine for that girl, but did it really have to be given to him of all people? *sigh* You win some, you lose some, I suppose.
“But wait, Matt,” you say. “Didn’t you win in some way that night?” Well, ok, I sort of did. Well…not when I made a joke about a girl’s engineering major being like philosophy (hey, she said all they [engineers] basically did was sit around and think!). But afterwards.
My guy friends were pestering me, asking how things went. If I’d date anyone I saw there, if I got anyone’s number…that sort of stuff. Well, thing is, my memory sucks. And I was kind of depending on that sheet of paper for remembering everyone’s names. But I did remember one girl. She was the last one I spoke to. She was the girl that came up to me on the one turn that guys weren’t the group that had to switch seats. We possibly had some chemistry, and as a bonus, I remembered her name! So, I added her on Facebook and we set up a coffee date. That went well enough, but things did eventually fall through.
That’s alright though; I don’t think meeting someone from speed dating is really the way to go. Maybe I just didn’t meet the right person, but I doubt 5 minutes is enough to know if you’re really compatible with someone. I think it’s best to know someone a bit better before you start dating. Really get to know who they are and not just what they like or dislike. Get to know how they act from day-to-day, that’s what’s important. After all, anyone can put on a show for the length of a speed date.
Just ask fucking Vladimir.
suspiciously generic 