My WOBD (Week of Blind Dates):

or the lengths I will go to for a good story

A couple of weeks ago my friend Lolly (a name a drunk man once gave her in a bar, not actually her real name, or all that close to her real name for that matter) sent around a link to a couple of our friends: www.crazyblinddate.com. Perhaps you’ve read about it, if not, here’s how they describe themselves:

Crazy Blind Date is a place where you can coordinate a date on extremely short notice. Online dating sites are cool (we also run OkCupid.com), but sometimes you just want to go out immediately, with reckless abandon. We understand it’s not for everyone, but it is for social, outgoing, and adventurous people. Oh, and it’s completely free.

Now I am pretty darn skeptical of internet dating (to put it diplomatically); however, I did go on a pretty awesome blind date last fall. Plus, I do love free.

So, I started the application. First you select the type of date you’re signing up for (solo, double or random double), the day/time and your city. Then you pick your neighborhood; they tell you not to “trek too far”, but then even if you pick seven neighborhoods they tell you they’ll never be able to find you a date because you’re too restricted (mixed messages anyone? it really is dating!). Then they ask how compulsive you are (how often do you check your e-mail), how long it will take you get to the various neighborhoods, and if you’re a lush or teetotaler (prefer a bar or coffee shop for your date).

Then onto the meat of the application! “Please enter a sentence or two describing your ideal meeting”: I hate questions like that, so I’ll not be sharing what I wrote.
Then on to your restrictions!
Apparently I am picky.
And shallow.
I thought I was being rather moderate since I placed no restrictions on ethnicity, religion, smoking, or education (most of the options). But apparently having a height restriction (of 5’10”! I’m 5’8”! and I wear heels! and boys lie about their height!) makes me demanding, as they told me several times (in a little magenta box that popped up and told me to “lighten up”). I’m sure it didn’t help that I checked “very important” for how much attractiveness matters, and “not really” for how much intelligence mattered*…

Lastly, you get to respond to the following four profile statements:

you’ll know me because I look like
things I’m good at talking about
what I expect of a date
before we go on a date you should know
AND you get to upload a picture, which they promptly blur out.

Here’s mine:

Then you wait while they find you dates
(and continue to tell you they can’t find you any because of your extreme restrictions). And while you wait, they have some questions you can answer which are supposed to improve your matches. I filled them out, because I am a big believer of going all in.
The questions were fine and dandy for awhile. Then they took a very sharp turn for the weirder and the more inappropriate:

Do you know what semen tastes like?

How important is their answer to you?

(I don’t know about other dating sites, because I’ve never signed up for them, but is that a normal internet dating question?)

And then for awhile it felt like all of the questions I was answering were not only about sex, but about more than mildly inappropriate forms of sex (or dare I say, rape—would you dump someone if you found out they liked child pornography? bestiality? etc.). Were they trying to figure out if I was sexually adventurous? Accepting? Moral? Were they really going to base my dates on these questions?
I still don’t know the answer to those questions, but I am still curious.

I do, however, know that for the most part, despite their dire predictions, they did manage to set me up.

Uplifting news: there are some really nice people in the DC area (which seems like it’s not saying much, but sometimes after going out my faith in that is shaken).

I had no major date disasters, which would have made for the best stories (other than falling in love at first sight and getting married in Vegas and having two children and growing old on a front porch together, obvi). But the dates certainly had their moments.

Date 1: Adonis**

I didn’t think to save my dates’ profiles until after my first date, so all I can really remember from Adonis’s profile is that he mentioned he was “shortish”. I remember this because I was expecting 5’8” or possibly 5’7” (both fine—I wore flats), but when he showed up he was 5’4”. No really. Fortunately, I’m a great conversationalist when I want to be, and since he was 20 minutes late, and I got there early, and directly from work, I was already kind of drunk from having two drinks on an empty stomach.

God bless alcohol.
(For the record, he was far more uncomfortable than I was by the height differential. I’m also pretty sure I outweighed him by at least 20 pounds.)

Date rating: 4 of 5 (on a platonic date rating scale).

Date 2: Skeet

Date 2 was technically not a date, since Skeet never confirmed our date. He did, however, describe himself as looking like Dave Grohl/Dave Navarro/Skeet Ulrich. Close your eyes and imagine that. The hair! And the facial hair! And the NINETIES!
Who can even rate the potential of that date?

Date 3: Forrest

I am not not a cheesy person, exactly. I love glitter and themed parties and Step Up 2: The Streets and I signed up for a week of blind dates. But there are certain things, like when people respond to “before you on a date with me you should know” with “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get” that make me wince.

I also sort of wince when the bartender starts making fun of me because I’m so obviously being stood up. I mean, yes, it’s funny, but still.

JK! I wasn’t stood up, although the bartender really did make fun of me a whole bunch. But that’s how I make friends, so I think we’re close now. Forrest finally showed up, and he was super nice and super cute, and there was no spark, and he keeps e-mailing from his iPhone, which I know because of that stupid little tag on the e-mails announcing it.

Date 4: Jeffrey

Speaking of being stood up, you know when you’re on an internet date and you see your co-worker at the restaurant, and it’s the co-worker who kind of intimidates you and to whom you don’t want to have to explain that your internet date stood you up?

Well, I do. Fortunately I figured out my date was at the basement bar, so I quickly hurried down there, no explanation required.

As for the date, it was really the same as the rest of them… the guy was nice***?

Date 5: Skeet!

Apparently crazyblinddate.com thought that maybe they could rate the potential of that first failed date because they tried to set us up again. Once again he failed to confirm.

Oh Skeet! How could you try to deny such blatant true love?

Date 6: DOUBLE DATE!

By this point in the week, I was sort of bored with blind-dating (adult onset ADD? yes). But this was my double date, and I figured if nothing else, I already like Lolly (my blind double date partner in crime).

We took turns talking to the dudes, who didn’t know each other (kind of awkward), and thank goodness for March Madness, because really, you can talk about that for hours. However, while I was talking to the “cleaned up Asian nerd from high school” (what does that even mean? Isn’t a nerd already cleaned up?), Lolly turned around and had the single most interesting conversation of the week (the sneak!):
did you know that drinking two Guinnesses makes your hard on last longer? But that three is too many?
Why/how is that not a Guinness ad?

Date 7: some girls, some boys, many mimosas, too much food, some beers & my bike

It became clear on my fake walk-of-shame home from my friend’s house Easter morning, during which I somehow managed to deflate my bike tire (still a mystery! being hungover is hard!), that I could not go to brunch and drink all day and then go out and meet someone else. I also canceled on my board game night and my mother. Can you say “winner”?

So there it is, my WOBD. I can’t say I’m sorry it’s over.

I mean, SO FUN. Do it.

*Yes, attractiveness means more than just looks. See date 3. Similarly, intelligence does matter, but they were measuring intelligence by degree, which is rather elitist, no?

**No, not his real name. Only in Greece are men actually named Adonis (and shocking number of them are). There are no real names in this “article”.
*** Did you “nice” comes from the Latin nescius, which means “ignorant”? Just a fun fact from middle school Latin.

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