Dear Diary
Before I give you the run down on the speed dating evening I will give you a quick update on the other potentials:
- No word from ex-work colleague
- No word from Mr Not-so-average Jo
- No more sightings of Mr Dashing
- The day has come and gone without a word from the TV Network guy that I was meant to catch up with today (= he’s scratched)
- No more word from the Doctor online (I think it’s because he tried three times to set up a date and each time I was legitimately busy)
- No word from Karate Kid
Back to the speed dating evening. Well, I felt quite apprehensive leading up to the start of the event. It was like a school yard in that the men mingled separately to the women at the start. There was an air of nervous electricity in the room as everyone knew what they were there for. It was like walking around with a giant slogan on your shirt saying ‘Desperate and dateless’, but pretending to be totally fine about being single and needing to take such drastic measures to meet someone. The flashbacks from my initial speed dating experience didn’t help. At least this time my expectations were very low and I was not too fazed if I met anyone that evening.
Once the dates started happening it got a little more interesting. Some guys were shyer than the others, some were definitely players and others were genuinely looking for someone to love. To be honest, I didn’t want to have to go through the interrogation-like interview process with each guy, but that’s what I signed up for so had to go with it. It was an art to get the balance between finding out about them and if I was interested in them and also answering their questions about me.
There were two intermissions. During the first intermission, one of the men came over to speak to me. He seemed very interested and was to be able to hold a conversation well. On the speed date, I had decided to put him as a ‘no’ initially, but after speaking with him during the intermission I felt more relaxed and more attracted to him. It could be because he was nervous on the first date of the evening that turned me off? From what I can work out he is an avionics technician who loves motorbikes.
During the second intermission a different man approached me. This one was the ex-supermarket manager who is now studying something that I can’t remember. He was very charismatic and well versed with customer service (something that I could brush up on). We got along quite well, he even suggested that we leave and go and get to know each other – I naturally declined the offer. What I didn’t like about him was that he spent time talking with other women. Now, I know that this is expected at a dating evening, but I still felt jealous. I guess jealousy means I care.
The hardest part of the evening was trying to decide if to select ‘friend’ or ‘date’ for the ones I was interested in. My theory was that if I selected ‘date’ that they may think that I’m really interested in them and I could go on unnecessary dates with guys not that interested in me but hoping for hanky-panky. Whereas, if I selected ‘friend’ the matches would only contact me if they were really interested in getting to know me, hence weeding out the weaker suitors.
It was a bit cut-throat, but I went with the ‘friend’ option for all five of the men I was interested in. There was a lot of doubt on the inside with worrying that I may not hear from any men at all as they may see it as a rejection, but it would be the only sure way to know if they were seriously interested in me – Let’s hope that my theory works!
I am also contemplating sending Mr Not-so-average Jo a message. Now, normally I would never initiate contact with a man, but I feel that mixed signals may have been sent last week and that I would really like to get to know this man better. After much discussion with a girlfriend I’ve decided to go with sending him a message tomorrow morning (almost a week out from the last date we had) and to give a light-hearted hello. Secretly, I’m hoping that he sends me a message through before I hit the send button!
Anastasia
The Contemporary Princess 