Elite Status!!

Soo... I went speed dating a couple of nights ago. I've always thought it sounded fun and now that I'm embracing my hip single-girl lifestyle, I thought "why not?!" So my friend V, Sis-E, and I went out to Hollywood for speed dating. We signed up a few weeks ago and couldn't wait for the actual event. Seriously, every day we'd count down the days. Everyone around us was interested in the event. Even my step-dad wanted to know how it went; he confessed that he'd always wanted to try it, too.

The excitement kept building and building until the big day arrived. Except by the actual day of the event, I was a little more freaked out than actually ready to "date" 10 guys in one night. To make matters worse, I had a meeting earlier that afternoon in Hollywood, so I had to arrive on my own. V and Sis-E were carpooling and coming up on their own. Ah! I totally didn't feel prepared to tackle this event on my own.

My meeting ended at 5:30 and speed dating didn't start until 7:30, so I had some time to kill. After waiting in my car for an hour (yeah, I was that sketchy person getting dressed and putting makeup on in my car... you know, just chilling in a parked car at dusk. No big deal), I decided to change locations. So I went to a nearby Pinkberry, where I waited for another 45 minutes. Alone. In Pinkberry. As in, nobody else was in there, except for the overly attentive person behind the counter who "hooked me up" with chocolate chips and later brought be water "just in case I was thirsty."

Finally, the time came for me to just suck it up and go into the bar. I saw a few girls lingering outside, so I figured that if anything, I had the place right. I go in and there is literally only two other people in there - one is the guy hosting the event and the other is some other speed dating dude. I ordered a drink, my usual G&T and wait anxiously for my people to arrive. After a minute or so, I decided to introduce myself to the other speed dater, since I decided I would be kind of an ass if I didn't. It was all a little awkward.

But soon, everything fell into place. V and Sis-E FINALLY arrived and after another awkward talk about how everything was going to go, we got started. And it was pretty fun! Sure, the first minute or so of every date started off a little slow, but after that the 8 minutes sped by.

I think the best part about speed dating was that it allowed me to get to know guys that I would have otherwise never taken the time to talk to... because honestly, the girls were a lot hotter than the guys. The guys were all a little so-so. Why is that? So many of my guy friends sounded interested and wanted to know how it all went, but were too nervous to give it a chance. To those of you single guys out there who have been on the fence about speed dating: Do it! You'll totally get a bunch of dates because of how normal you are! But really, I met some interesting people who I wouldn't mind getting to know further. It has reminded me to take the time to get to know people outside of my "norm."

Oh wait. I'm sure you wanted at least one juicy/ridiculous story from this event. Before I went, my coworkers and I were joking about absurd questions to ask in case the date went wrong. Such questions included "Do you think God likes black people or white people more?" and "Can you believe they still teach evolution in schools?" I was in the middle of a horrible date, clearly the worst of the night, where the 8 minutes could not pass any slower. He asked questions like, "Define romanticism" and "Do you believe in love at first sight?" and "If you saw your favorite actor, would you kiss him on the first date?" The whole time, he was like "I looove you and I already checked 'yes' as soon as I saw you." SO CREEPY. And so I busted out the evolution question. "What are your thoughts on evolution?" I asked. His response: "Another date with you." OMG and EW. Next!

Anyway, the next day, I received my matches (I had said yes to 4 out of 11 guys) and they all said yes to me! What a confidence boost!! And not only that, since I had such a high "success rate," I've been promoted to "Elite Status" with Fast Life, the speed dating company we used. That means I get discounted rates if I ever want to go again and can go to "Elite Events" for all of the cool popular people. Yay for me!!

But seriously, for those of you on the fence about speed dating, go for it! If anything, you'll get a little more comfortable with first date jitters/awkwardness and you might meet some interesting new people.