8 minutes in Heaven?

Actually, I never played that game in middle school. My dating whoas are not a new thing...

So my lovely downstairs neighbor had the brilliant idea that we should "mix it up" a bit and try speed dating at a local martini bar. Alright, I'm game. Drinks are included, right? So, we pay our $20 or whatever and head to Royal Oak. More info can be found here

We knew this may have been a mistake when we walked in to see some 20ish year old kid manning the "check in table" where we had to write our own nametags and he didn't seem to have a list of registered people. Also, there were girls as far as the eye could see. Crap, did we sign up for some lesbian speed dating thing?

So he says that the first martini is half-off ($5). Uh, ok, thanks? At this point, I would drink mouthwash to salvage the night so we saddle up to the bar. So after like 40 minutes of standing around in the very narrow, dark bar, they announce that we are splitting into two groups based on age: 21-27 and 28+ so J and I are in different groups and get to mingle with different guys. Alright, let's do this!

The girls sat at the tables and the guys rotated. Here is a rundown of the guys I had to talk to for 8 minutes each:

• 21 year old "real estate" guy (who I am pretty sure sold subprime mortgages in the hood), lived at home, did not go to college, smoked KOOLS and drank LONG ISLAND ICED TEAS. No.


• Another 21 year old who was a senior in college. A little too cougarish for me.


• Slightly scary military guy who just came home from Iraq. Slightly off balanced.


• Meathead guy who asked me 1) If I had kids (because he did) and 2) my favorite sexual position within 2 minutes. WTF!


• Engineer dude who proceeded to talk about how much money and the number of awesome toys he had (boat, jetski, whatever)


• A nice kid who HAD JUST MOVED TO CHICAGO and was only here to fill "guy" spaces to help out his buddy who "ran" the event. Of course!


• A socially awkward guy who had not left his mom's basement nearly enough to carry on a conversation.

J's group (the older and logically more professional of the bunch, right?) consisted of several over 30's who had no careers and were actors, artists or band members waiting tables until "their big break." Buhahaha.

SO we had to stumble through awful 8 minutes conversations that may have been better with more free booze, except there was no free booze and each drink was $10.

I think the worst part was that we didn't think of the idea. Put some ads out there, rent a bar space on a Monday night, charge people $20 for the opportunity to strike out, don't give away booze and ask your random friends to court single girls - instant money maker! Hell, I could even make people nametags ahead of time and look like a real pro!

But, hey, we branched out and can now never talk about it again!