What's the Rush? The Sequel

As I wrote before, my one attempt at speed-dating had not gone particularly well. I stumbled out of that event confused, disoriented and, as I would discover the next day via email, dateless. For a few days afterwards, friends, mostly single friends both gay and straight, asked how it had gone. I said the same thing to each one: "I will NEVER do that again."

Six months later, I am at the Gay and Lesbian Center, doing it again.This time, it's speed-dating limited to men who are 40+. This, it seems, is a good idea. The men will be more mature and certainly know what it is they want. Surely, at this age, many if not most will have had previous realtionships. They'll be more grounded, I tell myself. Plus, this time, the "mini-dates" will be six-minutes long, double the length of the dates in my prior experience, allowing more time to get a feel for the other person. And since I know what to expect, I feel more prepared and assume I'm in a much better position to come out with at least one interesting prospect. So, with my best Pollyannna-everything-is-possible attitude in place, I climb the stairs, hand over my $20 and sit in a room on the Center's third floor, waiting to begin. How could it possibly fail?

Probably because it's only about three weeks after New Year's and I'm sure everyone has made a resolution to get out more, the room is packed. There are so many unattached men coming in, that the organizers set up an "overflow" room to accomodate everyone. The organizers describe how it's going to work. Once we're ready to begin, those of us in chairs that are not against the wall are asked to stand up, turn the chair around and begin our first conversation with the man who is currently sitting behind us.

And we begin...

The first man I speak with is clearly unimpressed with me and not at all shy about letting me know. He sneers, rolls his eyes and then cruises the room to get a look at who might be more to his liking and, hopefully, coming up soon. When the whistle sounds he says the only two words he's spoken to me "See ya" and I move one seat to my right.I realize pretty quickly that longer mini-dates are not necessarily better mini-dates. As a gay man, this is confusing. Apparently, bigger is not better after all.

Date number six or seven, to be honest, scares me. A very thin, very pale man dressed in black from head to toe leans so far forward that he's too close for comfort. He speaks in a half-whisper, leaning in so close I can't see his face. His mouth is up against my right ear. I can feel his hot breath on my neck every time he exhales. I find myself wishing I had paid a lot more attention to Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was on the air, because clearly I'm going to need a few of her moves very soon. He says softly "I'm looking for someone to have some fun with." Undoubtedly, before he needs to retire back to his coffin at sunrise. Six minutes with Dracula lasts a long, long time.

A few more men come and go before I'm face to face with a deeply tanned, good-looking man of about fifty or so. In our short talk, his sole goal seems to be communicating to everyone that he has an "all-over tan", which he says complete with Snidely Whiplash eyebrows being lasciviously raised.and lowered.And so it goes, on and on until we're done. Once again, just like last time, I have no matches.

Leaving the room and heading towards the stairs I have no choice but to think that maybe, just maybe, the problem is me. Maybe all these attempts at trying to find someone special just means that I need to take some time and figure out what I really want. Maybe it's time to stop. Besides, wouldn't it be nice to meet someone just by chance instead of through all these attempts? Wouldn't it be great to just be out somewhere and just bump into someone, leading to an awkward hello? I get to the door of the stairway at the same time as some guy who comes out of the "overflow" room. We literally bump into each other. He's cute, very cute. "Hello" he says awkwardly and I answer, just as awkwardly, "Hello." What do you know, I think, maybe meeting someone nice by chance actually does work.

So, does it? I'll put it this way, you can read all about "Mr. Bumped into by Chance" soon.

Look for him as "Dating Story #6."