Speed Dating or Russian Roulette YOU Decide

This past weekend I dragged my friend Angel to a speed dating event. For months, he had been complaining  about how he could never meet anyone. He blamed his accent, his weight (bastards skinnier than me) and his ethnicity over his lack of dates. I knew this was complete bullshit. He had fallen into a negative view of the world. When we fall into this, it prevents us from achieving our dreams. I knew the best way to knock him out of this funk, was to throw him in the deep end of the pool.

So I bought two tickets to NYC Speed Dating Events. NYC S.D.E seems to be the largest speed dating company in the city. They are constantly throwing events for single people of all types of ages and backgrounds.

Once I told Angel about it, he was game. He had been curious about speed dating for a while now. Since back home, we don’t have events like this. The closest single event back in Puerto Rico is happy hour and karaoke at the local bar. The day of the event, Angel arrived late. This is something that annoys me to no end about him. But his job in finance tends to keep him from being on time for anything. The bar was in alphabet city and was a little tricky to find. Once I saw an overweight guy playing with his Iphone (complete with a Nintendo cover) in the window, I knew we were in the right place.

So let me explain how speed dating works for you rookies. Basically 15 to 30 girls are seated in a room while each guy is forced to have a mini date in five minutes. Once the five minutes are over the bell rings and the guy has to go to the next girl. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Well here are my thoughts on the event…

Before the event started I scoped out the room. I saw that Angel and I were pretty much the best guys there. Most of the men had come in under or overdressed. I know this sounds rather arrogant, but I felt like we were the two most interesting dudes there. This of course changed once the two jocks came into the room. At that point, I thought to  myself, just have fun, because I felt there was no way my beer belly could compete against a six pack.

All the women there looked stunning. I don’t think there was a woman there who I would not date. They all were nicely dressed to the heels.

The event got started probably twenty minutes after we arrived. The host just herded us to our seats but made no announcement of the rules or even if we began. Suddenly I found myself in front of a cute girl, and I just began to talk.

Let me pause here and explain my strategy.

So I knew exactly how every guy was going to start out each date.

“So where are you from? What do you do?”

By the third guy, I am sure the ladies would be extremely annoyed by those questions. So I tried to ask off the wall questions that would showcase my strange sense of humor. I am still debating whether this was the best strategy. I would ask questions like…

“What were you like as a kid? Did you have an imaginary friend? Do you still talk to them? Should I have concerns?”

“Would you survive a zombie apocalypse or would you be zombie food?

“Whats your favorite movie? Please don’t say The Notebook”.

“What was your worst date? This does not count”.

Now as for the ladies. I don’t think I met one single dud in the entire night. Trust me, I would be honest if I had encountered one. Every woman in the room was not only gorgeous but fascinating. Most were down for my strange sense of humor, and one even gave me a run for my money. If I could not date any of them, then I would have loved to have had their friendships because they were all exceedingly cool people to be around.

One gripe I had for the night though. Some weird horny old man came in off the street and bought his way into the event. He would ask the girls if their bras opened from the front or back. He would begin to dance for them in the middle of a conversation. Plus he would stay past the ring of the bell, eating up someone else’s time. I don’t think the organizers should have let him in. This was an event that we all paid for ahead of time, and he was obviously over the age range.

Afterwards, Angel was a changed man. I saw more confidence in him and a spring in his step. A few days later we both got e-mails from our matches. Angel got quite a few young ladies e-mailing him. I got one. I guess I wasn’t the hit I thought I was. Still the person who e-mailed me was the best of the bunch in my opinion, and I look forward to getting to know her.

So to sum up here are my thoughts on the whole speed dating sport.

1) Ladies be sure to go to have a fabulous time. The quality of guys at these events is not exactly breathtaking. Still I think at work, you will have amusing stories to tell around the water cooler.

2) Guys dress to impress. Don’t wear  stupid t-shirt and jeans. Also, don’t go overboard with a suit and tie. Try to find a middle ground.

3) Gentlemen please don’t ask “Where are you from? What do you do?” think outside the box with your questions. This is not a job interview. Make them laugh and have an enjoyable time.

4) Event organizers do your job. Organize! Tell us the rules, give us a heads up on when we are starting and don’t let random psychos off the street join in.

I think I would do speed dating in the future. Not anytime soon though. Let's see how my match turns out first. Still I did accomplish my mission in helping my best friend in getting out of his shell. Which to me is truly all that matters.