Single and (Un)Professional: 1, 2, 3 … Fall in Love

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In my ongoing quest to explore the wonders of singledom, Monday night I investigated the most convenient invention for singles ever — speed dating. What a sweet idea. Unlike a blind date, you aren’t forced to spend a long time with someone incompatible just to be nice; every four minutes you’re saved by a bell moving you to a new date. Unlike my unhealthy obsession with Craigslist personals, you interact with people to determine if you have chemistry. There’s no pressure to pick a restaurant, you don’t wonder if you have movie popcorn in your teeth, or if you should kiss goodnight. And it’s the ultimate crash-course in what’s available. Sweet!

Of course, when it was time to actually go, I freaked out. What if everyone is way older/younger than me? What if the guys are creepy/smelly/weird/not cute, or worse, not interesting? Only intense last-minute coaching from roommates, three outfit changes, and several glasses of liquid courage convinced me to go.

The first date was excruciating. We were both nervous and I couldn’t tell if he was cross-eyed or I just wasn’t cute enough to look at. Date number two didn’t laugh at my jokes, and I think I outweighed him by at least 20 pounds. Number three was old enough to be my dad, which made him uncomfortable and made me order another glass of wine.

But by round four, I figured out how to get the guys to talk about something besides work and started having hilarious conversations. Suddenly, four minutes wasn’t long enough. I was having so much fun with men I might not have met on a normal night out that I kept exceeding my time limit. Event organizers literally had to physically move me from table to table.

While I didn’t necessarily feel any love-at-first-sight flutterings, I made new friends, and I would definitely do it again. Luckily, I hear the sponsors have more speed-dating in store, which means Mondays are looking more interesting than ever.

You can trust I’ll keep you posted.

Single and social, over and out.

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