Eric Goes Speed Dating!

"Just because she got some shove in her can, doesn't mean your 'sposed to go and fall in love with her man..."
-Nappy Roots

After my Bull Riding story was published, my Grandmother called me to ask when I was going to PBR (professional bull riding) again.

Eric Prae: It was a lot of fun G-ma, but I really didn’t belong there.  City-slicker hippies look a little out of place among the gun-toting, pick-up driving, confederate flag waving masterminds that attend a PBR event!

G-ma:  That’s why I loved it!  You did something completely out of your element.  Do it again!  That is what makes you funny.

I have asked this question before, why are women so much smarter than men?

 

                                                                    ***

 

I really enjoy the dating scene.  Since I am the gregarious raconteur, I make new friends effortlessly.  I don’t have problems approaching women.  Talking to strangers comes easy to me, and if they have silicone parts, I approach them at will.

That’s not to say I have any type of game.  Quite the opposite actually!  Since I am the guy that completely ignores cultural and social norms, and since I live in a city where people value Maseratis and Affliction clothing (I have neither), I strike out more than Pat Burrell.  But if you want to hit homeruns you need to take big swings, and I’m not afraid to grab some pine and swing for the fences. 

When you add the fact that I usually can’t hear the women in a noisy bar and most of the time I am too inebriated to read their lips (or care what they have to say anyway), my dating life is less than exemplary.  The ladies that frequent south Tampa bars are concerned that I won’t respect them in the morning.  I explain to them that I never respected them to begin with.

I wanted to take Grandma’s advice and do something out of my element. For the enjoyment of my wonderful readers, I decided to go speed dating.

I ventured into this experience with no expectations.  I have watched the speed dating scene in the 40 Year Old Virgin and on the TV show, House, but deep down I was worried that I was in for a night of talking to dateless women about their 15 cats.  At a club, I can just head for an exit when things inevitably go wrong, and my friends are there for support (which means to laugh at me).   But in this situation I would be stuck talking to each female in the room no matter how much I pissed them off.  What could go wrong?

 

 After a Google search for an event, registering, and paying $23, I found myself walking into a trendy, chic, and really stupid fondue bar in St. Petersburg, FL.  Dressing up to sip overpriced drinks and dip bread into a public bowl of melted cheese is not what usually I do for fun.  I find the idea of everybody’s mouth around what was probably high priced spray “easy cheese” disgusting.  I would much rather be at the beach bar sipping a $2 Corona Light or at my pool drinking Crown Royal.  This is not a bar I would frequent. I am here for this noteworthy event.

I ordered whisky, but decided not to partake in the cuisine.  Will drinking heavily and not eating come back to haunt me later?  Probably.  It only took a few moments to come to the realization that I paid $23 plus the cost of overpriced alcohol to not hang out with my friends and play beach volleyball.  Plus I am dressed up.  Kill me now.

A portly lady handed out name tags and then called the women into a room to take their places.  The game is simple.   You start at the table of the woman with the same number as you, then you have 6 minutes to either convince her to fellate you or never see you again.  After 6 minutes you move to the next number until you have “dated” every person of the opposite sex in the whole room.  I pound the rest of my drink, grab another and get called into the room to meet my first date. 

As I walked into the speed dating room with the rest of the gentlemen, I realized that I was the tallest guy there.  Advantage Eric Prae!  I also realized that we were all sauntering in with the same sense of purpose - sizing up the females’ cup sizes.  Game on boys.  These guys are now the competition, which makes them the enemy. This is going to be fun.

I walked toward the booth where the first lady I was about to meet faced away from me.  I took another sip and sat down preparing for the worst. 

To my surprise, across the table from me was a very cute hippy looking chick with great eyes.  I was instantly attracted to her.  Maybe this speed dating thing was going to work out after all.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t start talking to her yet because the same portly lady that handed me my name tag was blathering instructions on how to talk to the opposite sex.  She was doing this from the other side of the room, far behind me.  I couldn’t hear a word of it.  Dating sheets were distributed for the purpose of taking notes on one another. I asked the facilitator if I needed a calculator for this exam, he didn’t get the joke.  I kept drinking.

Eric Prae: (Talking to Pretty Hippy Chick) What is that lady droning on about?

Pretty Hippy Chick:  She is giving us topics to talk about.  She doesn’t look like she has dated in years.

Eric Prae:  What are her suggestions?

Pretty Hippy Chick:  Politics, religion, marriage, pets, etc.

I thought she was kidding.  She wasn’t.

Eric Prae:  Ohhhh, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.  But just in case: Left, agnostic, never married, I have a puppy.  Let’s move on.

I then realized my luck at being assigned to Pretty Hippy Chick first.  The portly lady talked for a good ten minutes before our six-minute date even started.  So if I was going to be stuck at an intimate booth with a complete stranger while some dingbat was spewing worthless directions that I couldn’t hear, I am glad she was very attractive.

Our six minutes finally began and our date went well.  Conversation seemed to flow easily between us.  I liked that she lived in St. Pete.  Since I live in Tampa, I probably haven’t offended her at a bar or hooked up with any of her friends.  When we were done I took one line of notes.  Here it is:

 I would totally do this chick.

I am obviously a word-smith who takes great annotations.  Successful date.  Time to move on.

I headed toward the next booth, took another sip of my drink, and sat down.  She was slamming hot!  Who knew speed dating could be so prosperous!  I told her about my life of struggle and then listened to her stories about being a lawyer.  During our interaction I took out my “dating sheet” and wrote the top 10 things I would do to this chick in bed.  I took very explicit notes.  Just like my last date, six minutes flew by.  I kept drinking and decided that this was not the last time I would talk to “Slamming Hot Lawyer”.

The next few women had the unfortunate problem of being placed numerically after Pretty Hippy Chick and Slamming Hot Lawyer.  Every other guy in the place was probably going to think the same thing.  Bad placement screwed these poor women over. 

Then I had my first train wreck.  I’m never surprised when this happens, but I was proud of how far I had gotten into the evening before I crashed.   I sat down with a nice looking woman (I’ll call her Air Force One) and had this outstanding conversation:

Eric Prae:  So what do you do?

Air Force One told me a three-minute nightmare about how she was a combat medic.  She was currently stationed at MacDill AFB, and was just back from deployment in Afghanistan.  She was a level 3 trauma medic.  I listened intently to an extensive story about limbs being lost, blood being shed and how gruesome it is on the battlefield.  She was very descriptive.  This woman spends her time bravely saving those who fight for our country and doing something very important.  She went on and on for what seemed like an hour telling me the plot of her personal war movie.  She left no gruesome detail out.  I was overwhelmed by her bravery and moral fiber.  Then this happened:

Air Force One:  So what do you do?

Eric Prae:  Ummm, I write poop jokes.

Dead silence.  Then I burst out laughing.  That’s right, while she is saving lives, I am writing jokes.  Wow did I seem unimportant!  The look on her face said: “This guy is a total loser!”  That pretty much ended that date.  I needed another drink, or five.

The next woman I sat down with was a pretty and familiar face.  Since I was too timid to go speed dating by myself, I asked (or pleaded, begged, implored) my good friend Gabby to join me on this journey.  Luckily for me, she was willing.  Gabby shared her stories of asking guys about bondage and completely screwing with some of her dates.  Seems she wasn’t too impressed with the male clientele.  It was good to have a break from six-minute pop dating to talk strategy with a confidant.  I also needed to recuperate from my last failure and get another drink from the bar.

After two more dates it was time for intermission.  I headed to the men’s room and checked the mirror to make sure I didn’t already have the “I had too much whisky” face.  I figured I had one or two more drinks to go before I would start to see the cliff I was enviably going to fall off.  I then chatted with Gabby and declined more free cheese wiz and bread.  Seriously, fondue bars are gross.

During the intermission I recognized the stigma that was starting to surround me.  Since I was totally upfront with the fact that I was going to write about this for a comedy website (I was literally handing out promotional cards to each dater), people didn’t quite think I was taking this too seriously.  A lot of the daters were there looking for relationships.  I was there to network, make friends, and make an ass out of myself.  If I happen to meet a great female companion, awesome.  I try to make everything I do fun.  Meeting new people for six minutes is fun.  Pressuring myself into looking for marriage at speed dating is not.  Can we all please calm it down a little?  You know that person on the Bachelor or Bachelorette that is constantly being accused of not “being there for the right reasons”?  That was now me.

My first date after the intermission was with a nice girl who worked at Starbucks and lived 95 miles away.  What was I supposed to do with that?  I told her I didn’t own a helicopter.  At least she agreed to read my website.

The rest of my dates went quickly mainly because I was hammered, hungry and ready to tap out. I listened to life stories and then handed out a promotional card for my website.  But, then came the moment of truth.  After the final buzzer rang, we had to make decisions as to who we wanted to potentially date in the future.  I went over my explicit notes (that had basically become incoherent nonsense about who I which daters I wanted to have sex with) and decided to pick five people:  Pretty Hippy Chick, Slamming Hot Lawyer, Slamming Hot Lawyer’s roommate, my friend Gabby, and a really nice chick who I thought would be a great friend.

Then I got an envelope containing the names of the women who had chosen me.  I cringed when I realized it felt a little light.  Most of the guys took their envelope and scurried off somewhere to view their results in private.  When did this become an AIDS test?  I have no shame. I opened it right on the spot. 

I found FOUR names!  That’s it!  Four f-ing names!  Did Pretty Hippy Chick pick me?  Nope.  Did Slamming Hot Lawyer?  Not a chance.  I did all of that work to get rejected by the two women I wanted? 

What did I learn from all of this nonsense?  People take speed dating way too seriously!  Trying to impress one girl during a whole night is hard enough; accomplishing this with 12, not happening.  Also, if you are meeting women who are looking for a real relationship, don’t tell them you are writing about the encounter for a comedy website!
 
Add Comment
 

Thank you for riding the Struggle Bus!!! Tell your friends!!! Spread the word of Struggle!!!