Speed Dating

Last summer, in order to feel like I was participating in the zeitgeist a bit more (and that was the only reason), I decided to go speed dating. This, surprisingly, turned out not to be too unpleasant an experience. The worst part was descending the stairs to the bar it was held in, and opening the doors. But rather than turning out to be a damp dungeon full of mad, screaming women and monsters (as we'd all expect), it looked more like a bar full of normal, and some even attractive, women.

I managed to get a few dates out of it, all with the same woman. She looked like a very pretty (and younger) version of Josie Lawrence from 'Whose Line is it Anyway' and it only took seven dates for me to become fully put-off her before deciding I never wanted to see her again. The reasons for this included:

- her not actually knowing anything at all about me at all after this time, the reason for which was that she NEVER STOPPED BLOODY TALKING ABOUT HERSELF.

- her rarely contributing any money to an evening out meaning that, even had I wanted to see her again, I could no longer afford to as she had drained my bank account.

- when slightly drunk, she started incontrollably breaking stuff. Fine if you're out somewhere, but not good if I'm cooking her dinner at my flat and constantly having to replace her wine glass/plate.

Anyway, for some reason I seemed to have forgotten all of this when I decided, one year on, to go speed dating again last night.

I went with two male friends and we turned up at the venue slightly disappointed to see around 20 men and 7 women there. We went to the bar and I order two beers for my friends, and a mojito for myself. As I sat down with my strangely pink-tinted mojito (I have never seen one like this) a group of the men behind us said "Ooh, we better look out for this one. He's on the cocktails" pointing in my direction. I started to wonder whether I had booked us into the right event when another man sat down with us and started talking, while the number of women seemed to have diminished.

I started to feel slightly more comfortable when one of the organisers announced that the dating was about to kick off, and decided to nip back to the bar and get a more manly drink. A bottle of Corona with some lime in the top being the manliest drink I could think of.

We were then told that, despite the fact that five women were missing from the event, it would go ahead on time anyway. So I sat down with my first 'date', Jonathan, a designer from Kent. He told me that it was his first time and that he had come on his own. He also mentioned that he expected to go speed dating around five times before getting a date with one of the girls. Optimistically, I thought.

Anyway, after speaking to a couple more blokes I finally got to speak to Vicky, a chatty brunette, who was a bit on the large side for me (given how svelte my own figure is, I think it would be unfair to be in a relationship with such a size difference). When she told me her job was in 'Heavy Industries', I refrained from making any jokes, the bell went, and I moved on.

Next up was her friend Jo, a youngish looking curly-haired brunette. She asked how old I am ("27") and then asked me to guess her age. I guessed 23 and was told I was wrong and to guess again. "22 and a half?" which turned out to be spot on. She told me that no one had guessed correctly on their first attempt, and as I started an argument with her on my skills at age-guessing involving the terms 'rounding up', 'mean, median and mode', the bell rang. Back to Jonathan again.

After hearing his interesting and rather honest views on some of the women there ("number 6 is chatty but minging, so I won't be giving her a tick"), three more women turned up and I got to speak to one of them next.

Ankana was a jolly and chatty girl who worked in the IT industry. I asked her where abouts her office was and she replied 'India', so I let her off the fact that she was an hour late, as that's pretty good going really.

At the end of the evening, after talking to a few more girls (including Juliette, a pretty but ever so slightly scary-looking childrens entertainer, who had more gold teeth than Goldie), I finally got to the sacred tables in the centre of the room, at which were sat the three most obviously attractive girls there. I noticed that all the other men there had also been staring at these three friends for most of the evening, so knew that they were probably going to have the pick of all of the men there.

Katie, Alexa and Rachel despite being incredibly attractive, also turned out to be very nice too, which I was slightly surprised about. As I was having trouble deciding which of them to give a 'yes' tick to on my form (in the knowledge that it was unlikely they'd all date me if they all liked me, given that they were friends), I asked Alexa which one of them was the best. She immodestly announced that she was, so I decided she would be ticked as a 'No'.

Rachel was a newly qualified doctor. After struggling to think of things to say to her after a few minutes, I brought up the subject of what would be the worst question to ask someone whilst speed dating and then promptly asked her what her favourite sexual position was. She blushed and was saved by the bell that informed me the dating was over.

All three of the friends were so nice that I decided to tick Katie and Rachel, even in the knowledge that this could cause all sorts of cat-fights, some of them possibly even in the mud, or with little clothing on.

The one thing my friends and I had decided to do differently to the previous speed dating session was to stick around at the end, and try to build up more of a rapport with some of the girls. After mainly ending up talking to Jonathan some more, seeing one of the girls i gave a 'Yes' to getting off with someone and seeing the other spending the rest of the night chatting up the barman, I decided that this idea had probably been a mistake and headed home.

So here we are, the following day and I've now entered my ticks on their website. So far I have no matches (it tells me that the girls I like haven't entered theirs yes, probably because they don't know how to use a computer) and I have been ticked as date material by Vicky, and as friend material by Jo. Hopefully they are fighting over me as we speak.

I shall post the final results on here as they come in!