Hurry Up and Date Me

"What's speed dating?" an acquaintance once asked me.
"It's essentially a bunch of singles playing musical chair," I answered.

Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. I should know. I'd done it twice.

I distinctly recalled that, during my first 8MinuteDating event, I arrived one full minute late to my first assigned table. Under normal circumstances, such tardiness wouldn't mean much, but this was a date that would last only eight minutes, so my offense seemed like an unforgivable one. To my relief, my date was two minutes behind. We decided it was best not to waste time exchanging profuse apologies.

The fault did not lie with us, but with the setup. At the end of each date, the host rang her silver bell, prompting us to move to the next assigned spot. All the tables were numbered, which helped our navigation tremendously. But we weren't moving in a numerical order (I might have to rotate, for example, from table 2 to 14 to 18, then back to table 6), which confounded most of us.

Despite the dizzying rules and the inevitable clash of bodies (not to mention the incompatible personalities), I still prefer speed dating over musical chair. At least in speed dating, no one is left standing alone when the game ends (no one is supposed to be, at any rate).

Last Wednesday, with nothing interesting listed on prime time TV, I decided I might as well go to the speed-dating party hosted by HurryDate. It would count as my third.

This time, I arrived on time, but somewhat breathless. Worried that the cable car might not come in time, I'd hiked up the steep hill along the Powell-Mason track. I stumbled into Sugar Cafe, a bar with a large fireplace buried within its granite walls. The crackling flames and the blue lighting made everything glow (especially my white Oxford shirt) like a piece of moon rock.

"Am I unfashionably late?" I asked the organizer, a brown-eyed girl in a perky black blouse with huggable round shoulders. She wore a pink whistle around her neck, I noticed.
"No, you're just right on time," she said.

She wrote Kenneth28 on a sticker with a marker pen and slapped it across my chest. It was 15 minutes before the event, but nobody else was there, except Collin16, an affable man with ruffled hair, hiding his embarrassment behind a glass of Anchor Steam. I found the lack of women quite alarming.

But my worries were premature. Eventually my fellow singles, both male and female, arrived--unaccompanied and and in pairs, in trios and in groups, in low-rise jeans and low-cut tops, in overcompensated hairdos and over-starched collars, in a femme fatale's knee-high boots, in an investment banker's dark-blue suit, in a Silicon Valley programmer's awkward steps, in a globetrotter's daring strides, and (perhaps most notably) in a first-time speed dater's uncertainty.

The HurryDate host's method was more straightforward. She seated all the women in two rows, split against the wall and at the bar. At her first whistle, all the men would move into the vacant seats opposite them (in no particular order). At the end of each date (to last five minutes), all the men would move one seat to the right. Since the men outnumbered the women by three, she'd set up three break stations to fix the disparity. So whenever a man reached one of those stations, he'd sit tight, doodle on his score card, phone a friend ("Frank! I think this is a big mistake!"), or find some way to pass the time.

In theory, everything should run like clockwork. But in reality, it didn't. The host hadn't counted on a rogue speed dater, one who would, in blatant violation of the rules, pick his own seats, chat with a select few he deemed worthy, then leave, thus upsetting the balance of the male-female ratio. As it happened, one such black sheep was among us on Wednesday evening.

As soon as the first round ended, things fell apart.

"Where am I supposed to go?" someone asked the host.
"Where were you?" she asked him.
"I was there, so I moved here," he said.
"But where did he come from? Excuse me, where did you come from?" she asked the man who was already occupying the disputed seat.

While this was going on, I tried to concentrate on my date, Dana6.

"What do you do for a living, Dana?"
"I'm a registered nurse."
"It's an admirable profession."
"What was that?"
"I said ..."

Two feet away from us, Greg24 was eagerly describing his job to his date Julie7 in a volume nearly impossible to ignore.

"So I'd take those swabs, seal them in plastic pouches, then send them off to ..."

It felt like a double date, with Jon Bon Jovi serenading the four of us from the speakers behind the bar.

Then the whistle blew. Switch!

I turned left to find that someone else had just moved in (it was the gentleman who decided to design his own rotation plan). I gave the host a pleading look. She swiftly marched over, grabbed me by the arm, then found me a date.

Claire16 had blond hair, cropped just below her ears. She was in a fitted long-sleeve blouse with pastel-color flowers. I noticed her slender arms and elbows, resting symmetrically on the edge of the table like rockets on a launch pad. When she smiled, she beamed like Alice in Wonderland, unfazed by the talking rabbits and the grinning Cheshire cat.

"You're named after the girl in the moon," I remarked. "Claire de Lune."
"It's a full-moon night too," she pointed out.
'Where did you grow up?" I asked.
"In the Midwest, on a farm," she said, "Every morning, I went to the barn ..."
"Wait, are you pulling my legs?" I asked. "I mean, are you serious?"
"No, it's true," she said.
"So you must have what they call a green thumb." I said. "Are you good at growing things?"
"Not really," she said.
"I like your necklace," I said. "That little silver disc, it looks like the moon ..."

Another whistle. Switch!

I took my seat next to Annie9, a harmless looking dark-haired girl.

"How come you don't have a drink?" I asked.
She took a deep breath, then solemnly declared: "I think alcohol is the drink of the Devil."

I searched her face for a sign of humor or sarcasm. There was none. She meant what she said, quite literally. An uneasy chill descended on us. The next four minutes and 55 seconds were the longest I'd ever experienced. I was glad to move way when the whistle blew.

My next date, Jenny 16, was more accepting of the Devil's nectar.

"Why aren't you drinking anything?" she asked me, as she lifted a margarita glass sprinkled with salt.
"Because I want to be coherent," I said.
"That's funny," she said. "I'm drinking because I want to be coherent."
"Are you having fun?" I asked.
"Sort of," she said. "This is my first time. Have you done this before?"
"A couple of times," I confessed.
"So you're a professional speed dater," she teased.
"Nope," I answered. "I'm not getting paid here."

Whistle. Switch!

Once again, I found my next seat occupied. The host rushed to my rescue.

"Have you sat with her?" she asked, pointing at Claire16.
"I have," I replied, "but I don't mind sitting there again."

But she wouldn't have it. She led me to the end of the bar, to one of the break stations. I sat down, spread my tri-fold score card, then proceeded to mark "Yes" or "No" next to the names of my dates.

According to the sheet, I had met with two Darlenes. As I recalled, I liked one, but didn't feel the urge to see the other again. But which one? Was it Darlene10 or Darlene8 that I thought was cute? Unable to distinguish, I circled "Yes" for both.

Whistle. Switch!

I rejoined the game of musical chair. One of my dates was skeptical when I named Jane Austen as my favorite author. ("Really? C'mom, she's so girly!") Another didn't bother writing down my ID on her score sheet. ("It's just too overwhelming. I'm sorry. I'm not keeping track of anyone anymore.") Another spent three of the five precious minutes of our date trying to order the ice cream sundae dessert. ("Oh my God! Did you see that? That is insane! I've gotta have it. Excuse me, excuse me, waiter! What is that? Can I get one of those?")

I had a total of 20 blind dates. Of them, I'd like to see 10 again. If any of them feels the same way about me, then HurryDate will notify me with their contact info. Now, as we all go home and register our score cards, speed dating comes to a grinding halt.

The worst part of this ordeal is not the dates but the wait. Because when you're dying to find out if the girl in the moon likes you, every second feels like an eternity.