My first post speed dating date

Last night I went on my first date that was a direct result from speed dating.  Of course I've done some kissing as a direct result of some of the singles parties, but this was my first actual date with someone who I met speed dating.  The date was with R2 who I met at Karaoke Lover's speed dating.  R2 is 4 years older than me.  He is divorced and has 2 daughters.  He does pharmaceutical sales and he lives in Westchester.  For many NYC'ers this would be a turn off, but since I live in the NW Bronx, it's not too bad.  He actually lives closer to me than someone in Brooklyn would.  R2 decided to take the train into the city since we were going to meet for drinks and we met at Grand Central.  From there we used our phones to find bars and actually found one nearby that did KARAOKE!  Why not, since we had that in common.   So we each put in songs to sing and got some drinks.  While we were waiting we chatted about our lives and it turns out that we have a lot in common.  The bar was crowded with a lot of karaoke regulars, so it was about 40 minutes before our names were called.  So....R2 told me about a bar in Westchester that he goes to and has won their big karaoke contest at.  When we were at speed dating we did Bust A Move together, so he didn't actually sing.  When he got up to sing, he had an ok voice, but certainly not one I'd write home about.   I wonder about the people he competed against.  Fortunately he is not trying to be a professional singer, and I really enjoyed talking with him, so it didn't matter to me what he sounded like...it was great that he wanted to participate.   The thing that sucks about the Metronorth is that the last train leaves at about 1am, so we had to end our date so he could get home.  I walked with him back to Grand Central and we made plans to go out again.  When he leaned in to give me a kiss it was very proper and chaste.  Perfect for a first date.

Bombay Dreams

I finally feel like I’ve gotten into the swing of things with hosting.  The event from a few nights ago was called Bombay Dreams.  It was for Indian women and the men who love them.  There were a lot of men who signed up for this event but not quite as many women, so I was able to invite a friend to come.  The women were all beautiful and seemed very nice and intelligent.  The men were a complete mix of everything.  There were Indian, Black, White and Latinos.  This was the first time that I was hosting an event that I didn’t fit into the theme.   However, since there were about 3 more men than women, I jumped in.  When I guy got to me I told them that even though I wasn’t Indian I was single and if they wanted to they could speed date me…or they could take a break.  Every guy except one decided to speed date me as well.  But here was the interesting thing about the man who didn’t want to speed date me.  He was white but from Europe, I’m not sure what country, but he had an accent.  After I told him that he could date me or take a break he looked at me and broke into a very stereotypical and almost mocking Indian pose with a bobble of the head and in an Indian accent told me “you aren’t Indian, why would I want to date you.”  I wasn’t offended that he didn’t want to date me because I am not what was advertised for the event.  But I found his imitation to be not the sincerest form of flattery.  I would be willing to bet that if any of the women had heard him, they would have been offended. 

So clearly, for the other men, my not being Indian didn’t matter as I was chosen by 4 guys.  I liked two of them.  They were both in the Marines.  But here is the conflict…these two guys came together.  They are in the Marines together and are good friends.  Do I email both of them?  There is one that I do think is better looking.  I think I will start with him and then see what happens.

Karaoke Lovers Update

I was really excited because the day after the Karaoke Lovers speed dating I picked both R1 and R2 and they picked me too.  Here is the email exchange between R1 and myself.  He is the one who didn't sing, but who danced with me. 

----- Original Message -----
From: R1
To: Hostess with the Mostess
Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2010 5:56 PM
Subject: So Interested

It was so great meeting you at the Karaoke event last night and I am glad we are a match. You are fun, beautiful, intelligent, and sexy. What more could a man ask for lol? Hope we can hook up and hang out one on one so that we can get to know each other better. Until later?

R1

----------------
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 19:50:21 -0400
From: Hostess with the Mostess
Subject: Re: So Interested
To: R1


Oh R1....flattery will get you everywhere. I enjoyed meeting you as well. I would like to get to know you better too.

Hostess with the Mostess

----- Original Message -----
From: R1
To: Hostess with the Mostess
Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2010 9:33 PM
Subject: RE: So Interested

So, how do we start this? Are you an e-mailer, texter, prefer phone conversation? Lady's choice.

R1

----------------
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2010 22:21:58 -0400
From: Hostess with the Mostess
Subject: Re: So Interested
To: R 1


All three work fine for me. I seem to be really busy this week, so email and texting might work best to start.  (insert my number here)

Hostess with the Mostess

----- Original Message -----
From: R1
To: Hostess with the Mostess
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 11:43 PM
Subject: RE: So Interested

Will call, e-mail, or text tomorrow. Night, night, sunshine

R1

So, it's been 3 days since R1 told me that he would get in contact with me, but I haven't heard anything from him.  How annoying.  Guys if you say you are going to do something, DO IT!  What a turn off!  I guess I could email him again and ask what happened, but I feel like if he was "SO INTERESTED" he would have called when he said he would.

But the greatest thing about working for the speed dating company is that I know I'll always have another event where I'll meet 10-20 more guys around the corner.  And R2 also emailed and he actually followed through.  We have a date next week.  That is the way you should do things.  Strike while the iron is hot.  I will post after our date.

Speed Dating Tip #1

I thought it would be helpful to post some of the tips that I've learned about speed dating...here is the first!

Don't talk too much about work.  This is not a job interview.  Besides just stating what you do, you really don't need to go into it. 

The the Beauty and the Geek speed dating, there was one guy who I thought was cute but he spent the entire date talking about his job.  I really didn't need to know the specifics about his computer programming job.  All I need to know is that you have some disposable income and hopefully you like your job.

Karaoke Lovers

I was really looking forward to Karaoke Lovers speed dating.  I wasn’t hosting but I definitely wanted to participate, so my boss invited me to come.  This event was speed dating and then everyone stayed to do karaoke.  It was so much fun.  It was so great to know that everyone liked to do karaoke, an automatic commonality.  The funniest speed date was with a guy who was really serious about karaoke.  I asked him what his go to songs were, because we all have them, and he whipped out his phone.  He had an entire list of karaoke songs…I’m not talking about 2-3 or even 5-6.  He had to have at least 25 songs in the file.  But what was weird was that he wouldn’t let me read the whole list.  Did he think I was going to steal his songs?  He was so protective of it and I really didn’t understand it.  He just read off a couple of the songs that he did most often.  Overall though this entire group was a lot of fun.  Everyone sang by themselves and then people started doing duets and group numbers.  When people weren’t singing they would dance to the other singers.  There were two guys R1 and R2 who I really hit it off with.  I sang Bust A Move with R2.   R1 wouldn’t sing, but we danced a few times.  There were a couple of other guys who picked me after the event, but I really liked the Rs and they both picked me.  We’ll see what happens.

Theme Suggestions

I have been posting on Facebook about my new job hosting speed dating and one of the guys who I met on my cruise emailed me with some theme suggestions.  I thought they were really funny so I wanted to share them...

 

Here are a few speed dating ideas I may like:
-overweight men and the ladies who love them (you have it for big women but not vice versa)
-financial services professionals
-Men with MBAs
-men from NJ, LI, Westchester, and surrounding area and the ladies who want to date them (can also do women from those areas and the men who like them)

now the perfect one for me:
-men from NJ who are overweight with an MBA and ladies who love them :)

Double Birthday Party

This weekend was the birthday of two of my dance class friends.  CA, my crazy wing woman from girls night out and A.  They have the same birthday so they decided to have a joint birthday party.  All of my wing women were going to be there along with a bunch of my other friends from class, so it was guaranteed to be a great time.  We were having a great time drinking and playing pool when all of a sudden I noticed two guys.  We decided to chat with them and learned that they were West Point Cadets with the night off.  One was from the mid-west who N, one of my wing women was talking to, and the other was from South America.  While they weren’t in uniform I could just imagine what they looked like.  Yum.  Of course, I am familiar with West Point and the fact that they were cadets made me curious about how old they were.  The South American told me that he was only 26.  Yikes!  I thought he was cute but he was 9 years younger than me.  But the alcohol was in charge and for that night I just didn’t care, especially when he kissed me!  He had great lips and beautiful eyes and he was a wonderful kisser.  He whispered in my ear “take me home with you.”   I looked him in those dark brown eyes and promptly burst into tears!  The look that overtook his face was of sheer confusion.  If I wasn’t a hot mess it would have been really funny.  He asked me what was wrong and I cried “I don’t want a one night stand….I want a husband!”  I ran towards the bathroom and found my friend R and threw myself into his arms sobbing.  My other friend A saw me run from the guy and came to find me fearing that something had happened.  “What did he do to you?  Do I need to beat that guy up?” he shouted.  At which point I had to explain that the cadet had done nothing wrong but as I was making out with him I realized that it would never be anything more than a one night stand and what I really wanted was a serious relationship.  I was sure it would be a good time but it wasn’t what I wanted.  I wanted more and jumping into bed with someone would not get me any closer to that.  So I went into the bathroom to clean myself up and amazingly when I returned to the bar, the cadet was still there!  I apologized to him profusely explaining that he had done nothing wrong, but that I couldn’t take him home with me.  I’m sure he thought I was the craziest woman he had ever met in his life.  It certainly wasn’t what he was looking for that night.  At that point I started drinking water so I could sober up.  I went home that night with a clear idea of what I wanted in my life.  I hope I find it.

Hot or Not

The speed dating company has an event called Hot or Not.  The way it works is that you cannot just sign up, you have to submit a picture and if you are deemed by us to be hot, then you are allowed to come to the event.  I wasn’t hosting this event, which was speed dating followed by a mixer, but my boss invited me to come and check it out.  When I arrived I was excited to see that G, from Finance-ista speed dating was there.  We chatted for quite a bit.  There was also a firefighter who was in the FDNY Calendar and I also met this other guy, TS who I thought was also very good looking.   It seemed that Hot or Not definitely delivered what it advertised.   At one point during the night I relieved one of the other hosts from the door so she could visit the ladies room.  G was chatting with me up front and when the other host came back he started blatantly flirting with her right in front of me.  I was so disappointed and a bit annoyed.  To do it right in front of me was kind of insulting…but the room was full of good looking men, so it wasn’t hard to move on.  The other host told me that she thought that he was really rude to do that to me and that she would never go out with a guy like that.  At least it backfired on him!  I ended up chatting with TS and getting a bit cozy with him on one of the couches in the back when my boss asked me if she could talk to me.  She told me that TS, while really nice and good looking, was a little strange and probably not the best choice.   So what do I do?  Discover the strangeness by myself or take my boss at her word?  When I went to look for him he completely disappeared…so I guess he made the choice for me.