The Winner Parade Entry 6: Behind the Scenes on My Crazy Blind Date

So remember back when I was famous for being perpetually single and so frustrated with the ridiculous system that we call courtship (and by "we" I mean old people like myself; I believe the kidz call it "Laying the Jezzy on Some Hos")? Good times. Oh wait, actually... BAD TIMES.

For those of you who were not here a year ago and who have not spent your weekends memorizing my archives: Firstly: FOR SHAME. Secondly: A refresher. So I discovered Crazy Blind Date back when I needed two things: 1. Some lovin' and 2. Some blog fodder. I went on one date that was, in the end, neither Blind (since he read my blog predate) nor Crazy (since he was a pretty normal dude) and then I wrote a brillant blog post about it. This post was soon found by the owners of the dating service which is how I became the one woman spokesperson for dating random dudes. Shortly thereafter I got an email from the site founder asking me to go on another date which would be filmed by The Mike and Juliet Morning Show. More chances at free loving and blogging: SWEET. This post is the public face of that little adventure and THIS POST (the one you're reading right now) is the behind the scenes sweet juicey meat of the same experience.

So for the sake of faux anonymity let's call my copilot in Crazy Blind Dating for TV Mr. Slick because even though I'm 98% sure he does not read this blog (and 53% sure that he cannot read at all) and 100% sure that you could go back to the first post about our date and get his name I'd like to keep pretending that I am not a horrible person willing to publically throw former paramores under the bus in exchange for a brief respite from my writter's block.

Ok, so I went on the filmed date with Mr. Slick and it was fine I guess. He was cute, much cuter than many of the guys I date BUT I don't even like cute. Or, not that kind of cute. I like floppy hair over lots of gel, I like ironic tshirts over starched collars, I like eye rolling over googly eyes. Slick was The Bachelor and I was looking for... someone who would not be considered muscle-y enough for reality TV. He was also very eager, so much so that he managed to insert himself into my post date plans by tagging along to the Roller Derby even though it meant posing as press to get around the sold out tickets situation. When I mentioned to a friend the possibility of getting together for a board game night he again tried to force his way in, even insisting that we should play games TOMORROW. On face value this seems like it should be flattering he must really like me to be trying so hard to hang out but really how could he like me so much after 2 hours of hanging out half of which was on camera and therefore totally not real? And even if he *did* like me that much shouldn't he know better than to be so obvious about it -- have some damn shame/pride. Anyway I managed to not see him again until we were both sequestered in the Green Room with Mike and Juliet (this was a feat, the boy texted me AND called me multiple times -- keep in mind that the time between date and TV appearance was about 36 hours.).

And now a brief pause for a moral lesson, listen up kiddies. I have often in dating made the "oh give him another chance" mistake. I mostly blame my friends (oh, and my self esteem issues). you see when you're single and not so thrilled with it and friends with a lot of married ladies who want nothing more then to live vicariously through your (theoretically) exciting single life it goes something like this:

Friend Who is Sick of My Whining: How was your date?
Me: ehhhh ok i guess.
FWiSoMW: Was he cute?
Me: Sure
FWiSoMW: Did he do anything weird?
Me: Well... I dunno, I guess not.
FWiSoMW: Give him another chance!
Me: But... not funny... and.... kind of boring....
FWiSoMW: He was nervous! And shy! ANOTHER CHANCE!

And so a second date, and sometimes a third and I never get any more into it and the dumping is even more painful than it might have been. I'm not usually one to argue for intuition over facts but dating is a unique little beastie and one should probably just go with her gut. Lesson over.

But back to Slick and our date #2 which I agreed to because "but you were on TV! That didn't count! He's cute!" We went to a wine bar which is how I ended up at his apartment at 3am. Well, that and the promise of meeting his dog -- I'm a sucker for dogs. The dog was nowhere near the coolest thing in his apartment. He lived in a small studio in the East Village which would have been ho hum if it weren't for the HANGING BED. He (or, I suspect, one of his smarter friends) had rigged up a pulley system for the bed that allowed you to push the entire thing up flush with the ceiling or pull it down to dangle in the middle of the living room for sleeping. He even had counter weight book shelves! Frankly, this changed everything. I mean, sure, he was kind of boring and weirdly eager and not too bright but when would I get another chance to experience the wonder of a hanging bed? And wasn't the existence of the hanging bed a sign that deep down under the sweater vest and all of that hair gel he was probably a totally cool guy? I managed to resist slutting it out for the bed that night but things got even worse when I started telling people about the bed. My Settlers of Catan buddies at work put it best, "Well, you pretty much have to go out with this guy like 12 more times cause after 5 dates you can probably bring your girl friends by his place but you'd have to be pretty serious to get away with inviting over a bunch of random nerdy dudes from your office and WE TOTALLY NEED TO SEE THIS BED."

And so... a third date. We met for coffee, mostly because I couldn't imagine spending more than an hour with this dude without falling asleep. Mid coffee drinking he started to tell me a story about his recent bar tending gig. Apparently one of his coworkers was kind of annoying and so one day during the time when the supposed jerk was in charge of the till Slick took a bunch of money out of the cash register and put it into his pocket. And then jerk guy got fired for losing/stealing the money! and Slick got to keep the cash! HILARIOUS, right? No. Who shares stories about that funny time when they stole some money? Crazy, boring, not so smart guys who looks ok on the outside but turn out to be not worthy of a date 4 no matter how cool their bed might be. And so me and the swinging bed were never to meet again because while I might sacrifice my virtue for the sake of playing Jane and Tarzan in a swinging boudoir I could not ignore the fact that Tarzan was a baboon.