6:18 p.m. - 2008-03-24
In which a parade of men entice me with tales of tax brackets and eye contact

At the risk of this blog turning into a complete �Sex in the City� rip-off, I have more insight into the world of dating. I tried something completely new this weekend at the behest of The Fourth. Yes, your dear Blog-stress has ventured into that much maligned, often parodied scene known as speed-dating.

Fascinating. Really.

I went into this experience with three major thoughts: 1) Keep an open mind but don�t be too open. 2) Be perky, but be yourself. 3) The worst that can happen is that you have something to write about on your blog when this is all over.

I have not yet found out the results of the adventure as the company says that they will e-mail me a list of �yeses� within 48 to 72 hours afterward. I have not yet received said e-mail.

I did arrive at the very last minute to the event. Not intentionally, but merely because I could not find a taxi and traffic sucked because the weather was better and every tool in the city decided it was a good day to go to Target or something. This kind of worked in my favor as I was the last woman to sit down. The Fourth was not sitting next to me as we did not talk to each other instead of our �dates�. Plus, there was one more woman then men, so I got a filler on the first round. One of the event planners sat with me and it gave me a chance to practice before I jumped head first into dealing with the actual candidates.

From there on out it was a steady stream of �eligible� bachelors. The first guy was actually not bad looking and had the most intense eye contact I have ever encountered. The next guy asked me about my job, and when I responded that I was in real estate, he spent the entire time asking me about buying a condo vs. a two-flat. He is just getting killed on his taxes. I care. The third guy was a youngster who likes walks in Millennium Park and looked like he just got jumped out of his gang. This should not be taken as a racist comment as he had several broken teeth that looked as if they had been filed into points. He was actually quite nice and nervous, but looked frightening. Guy #4 was the Asian stripper. Seriously. He offered to have me come see him work. Then there was the nervous fast talker who was very interested in my choice of breakfast cereal. There was the high school baseball coach who ran out the door at half time. There was the sad guy who you know his mom dropped him off at the front door, pushed him in, and told him to go find a wife. I asked him why he was there, and he answered that he �wanted to find a woman and get married.� He was very sweet, but really lacking in conversation. It went on and on. By the last guy, I just said that I had answered the same question over and over and that he had to come up with something new. He stepped up to the plate and offered, �what was the last cd you listened to?� Bless his heart. He actually seemed to have decent musical taste and wasn�t bad looking too. He had potential more than many.

After the rounds and rounds of babbling, The Fourth and I met up to compare notes and fill out our forms of destiny. One of the gentlemen, a political writer, sat down with us and was confounded to find out that we were friends. He seemed to find it odd that two women who are outwardly so different could be friends. She is tall, blond, and very shy at first. I am short, round, and kind of brash (have you figured that out yet?) Before he found out we were friends he had complimented The Fourth on her outfit, saying in a nice way �that her outfit made it easy for him to look her in the eyes.� He told me when he met me that �it looked like a should be walking on someone�s back.� What???

Anyway, he just sort of leeched onto us after that. He followed us out and offered to walk us to dinner. Then he asked to join us for dinner. Then he walked us to the car. He was interesting enough, but we really looking for some girl time to sit down and talk about what had just happened while it was still fresh in our minds. In the end, we decided that intellectually he was more suited to The Weenie than either The Fourth or myself. We�ll see if we can�t set that up.

After finally shaking off That Guy, we ran off to The Foot for some liquid refreshment, and decided there just wasn�t much more to discuss about the whole affair after-all. Now we wait for the results. Of course, a post will be forthcoming promptly.

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