Sunday, May 6, 2018

Lucky 13



I recently gave speed dating another go. Some of you loyal readers will recall the less than stellar first experience, but if you need a memory refresher, here it is  http://goodlunchstories.blogspot.com/2016/05/speed-dating.html?m=1 

My second experience speed dating was much better than the first, and I have to credit the difference to beer! A local brewery hosted a speed dating event that started with drinking a beer and touring the brewery as a group. The beer serves as a social lubricant, and ladies, realistically, you're just going to get a better crop of men when you offer them beer instead of coffee! 


After we saw where the beer gets brewed, we had a chance to order a second drink and then sat down at four long tables formed into somewhat of a u shape.  Ladies sat on the outside with men on the inside. Men rotated to the right every four minutes for a new date. I had a pleasant experience with everyone and the overall group vibe felt reminiscent of a college party where we were just chilling and meeting new people. It also helped that I went with three female friends. Never go carousing for men without your wing-women! At the end of the official speed date event, we all got to chat unofficially without four minute time constraints while the organizers tallied our interests. The ladies who organized the speed dating event were the wives of the two brewery owners. The wives took all of our official note cards with our date preferences listed on them. They hand wrote the email contact for our matches and then returned our note cards telling us it was now our job to contact the people we liked. 


Although I enjoyed hanging out with everyone, and marked a couple on my notecard, I only followed up with one man who most sparked my interest. Lucky 13. Well, his number was 13, and since my number was 7 we decided that we both had lucky numbers and referred to them thusly. 


When I emailed Lucky 13, it was immediately returned to me by the postmaster as having an invalid address. In their frenzied writing, the brewery wives wrote down an incorrect email. I wasn't sure of a couple digits - is that an 8 or an E? I tried the other variation of his email by changing one of the sloppily written digits, but still had an invalid email address. C'est la vie. I figured it wasn't meant to be. 


A couple weeks went by when I unexpectedly got a Facebook message from Lucky 13. He explained that he had somehow forgotten to write down my number on his notecard that night and he hoped I didn't mind that he looked me up. I didn't mind at all!


When recanting the story to some of my 20-something age friends at the makeup counter, they all cooed about how profoundly romantic it was that he "pursued" me by searching on Facebook. Then they suggested which was the most romantic shade of lipgloss to wear on our date. They also laughed hysterically when I said that we all exchanged email addresses as our contact information. "Email!!! Bwahaha! You're so old!!!"


At that moment I did feel old. Not because I still use email- most grown up professional people use email! But because I grew up in the era of romantic comedies, or rom com's, as we 30 somethings affectionately call them. Rom com's reflected the romantic ideals of the time. Men wrote love letters, bought flowers, stood outside windows with romantic music blaring on their boom boxes, climbed up fire escapes to declare their love to the whore with a heart of gold! (Upon reflection, I'm reconsidering how romantic Pretty Woman might have seemed if it was aptly named, The Businessman and the Whore) And if they would've seen You've Got Mail, they would realize that email is a perfectly suitable communication mode for your romantic interests! (Also, it's not like I still use AOL!)


Lucky 13 is actually a couple years older than I am so he also found their reaction surprising and amusing. I only told him about the reaction to email being antiquated. I didn't feel the need to share at that point about my and the girls' views on his level of romantic pursuit. 


Lucky 13 and I had great conversations, enjoyed watching classic movies, and discovering new hand crafted (AKA over-priced hipster) beverages. I feel like we had a good basis of friendship and there were of course some romantic moments, but he was rarely flirty. The romantic chemistry was less than intense, but I still enjoyed his company. I thought to myself that maybe this is the compromise that married people are always telling me about. He had the important attributes where I could see him being a good husband and father, but not the overwhelming attraction/love at first sight that I'd experienced with a couple others- a couple others who turned out to be horrible jerks who broke my heart! So by that train of thought, I hypothesized that maybe the crazy love at first sight feeling is actually an indicator of an asshole who might eventually break my heart. I'd like to think I'm wrong about that one. 


After a few weeks, things tapered off undramatically. He was busy one week and then we just never made plans after that. Being "busy" was probably his way of letting me down easy. But I'm not broken hearted about this one. I actually wouldn't mind being just friends with him and seeing those old movies that nobody else ever wants to see with me. I haven't figured out a non-awkward way to make that invitation. 


Possible text:  "Hey Lucky 13, I realize by now that you obviously don't want me to be your girlfriend and that's cool. But hey, do you want to catch that Carey Grant movie at the Alamo? I promise not to make out with you at the movie...unless you want to, that's cool, too." 


Moral Of Today's Story:

A.  If you're going to speed date, you should have two very important things: 1. a wing-woman and 2. Alcohol. 

B.  We need more romantic comedies in the world today!

C. In my pursuit of love and marriage, I've decided I'm still going to look for that crazy, head over heels, overwhelmingly-in-love feeling. Maybe it won't be love at first sight, but I want it all. Crazy love + friendship qualities = future husband? I hope so. 






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