Dating is a struggle
Welcome back from “Parts 3 and 4: Online Dating”
Where we left off, you learned that online dating is much more expensive than you thought, very time-consuming, and you face an uphill competitive battle for the ladies’ attention.
Part 5: Events Dedicated to Singles (Singles’ Events)
- Singles’ Parties
- Singles’ Night Mingles at bars/restaurants
- Ladies Night (Its own antonym!)
- Adult Ed classes on Dating
- Dance/Cooking Class
- Speed Dating
Do you really enjoy these events?
Singles’ Parties are when you swallow cheap booze and your pride and wear that sticky nametag which reads, “Hi, I’m <my name>” and in invisible printing it says: “and I’m embarrassed to be here”. Cougars come out from the perimeter. Must be the scent of the sticky nametag glue or marker. Do you want to be her Cub? You pay your $20, sign in, enter the room, and scan for women like a U-boat captain. But it isn’t 1942—no Happy Time for you, Herr Kapitan. You go to the bar and drink crappy wine or pay a lot for better than house quality booze. It seems like all the phone numbers you get are really because the woman is selling you some kind of product or service or multi-level marketing thing. Vietnamese health juice, financial services, soap, website development, customized greeting cards, etc. After a few events where you didn’t see many “targets” you try to lollygag in the lobby watching ladies go into the event before plopping down your $20. You do anyway, and after more events you swear, “I’ll never do this again!” But, like your promise after your first hangover, you do.
Singles’ Nights at bars or restaurants are designed to get people to come and buy food and drinks. They are scheduled for historically slow nights of business in the food industry: Tuesday/Wednesday. If they are Friday, it is a precursor to another event, and they are using you to fill up the place so that people out on the street think the hideous band or dj is awesome (because there’s so many people in there!) and will wait on a line to pay a door fee.
Is this you on the dance floor or in the kitchen?
Dance classes? After your senior prom, is the answer to the Beach Boys’ question “Do You Wanna Dance?” is No. You are going for one reason only: to meet women. Women are going to learn how to dance. And they learn how to dance by dancing with a man who dances better than you. They get annoyed by dancing with you. Unless she is a cougar, and thinks you’re her next cub. Do you really really really want to learn Brazilian Tango? Or do you just want to meet a woman for a date? Do you really really really go to the food store to buy oil filters for the car?
Cooking Class is a good idea. You learn some good stuff. I enjoyed it. But all the women I met there said they were learning to cook because they were getting married and didn’t know how to cook, and thought they needed to learn.
Ladies Night… have you noticed that there are no women at Ladies’ Night? It’s a classic trick. If women drink for free, then they will come, and when there are lots of women, more men come! And drink!! Question: Do women need to buy drinks? Only the ones you’re not interested in. The women you want never need to buy their drinks anyway. And at Ladies’ Night, the room will be flooded with too many guys hitting on them and ruining their conversation with their girlfriends, so they don’t go.
Adult Education? Sounded much better at first thought. Ok, so maybe the class will have people who are single! You’re focusing your effort on where single women will be. No boyfriended, engaged, married but visiting my friend, or swingers. The courses meet one or two weeknights or Saturday afternoons, and are from $20 to $80. The instructor provides home-spun philosophy, or general advice from his or her personal coaching business. Many of these instructors are using these classes as promotion for their coaching business.
Maybe the Adult Ed instructor will ask a question like, “Who’s attended a speed dating event?” No hands in the air? I know why: Maybe you haven’t attended; you’ve attended and won’t admit it. My bet: the second choice. Here is How Speed Dating (Doesn’t) Work.
How Speed Dating (Doesn’t) Work
You (and a friend who goes with you to keep your spirits up) go to a restaurant or bar with a side room. As you’ve learned from Singles Events, you get there early to scope for targets. There are a few pretty gals in the room. (Add them into your Dating Data experiment.) At some point in time, the door opens, and you go in and write your name on a sticky label tag with a cougar-attracting scented marker. And a number. This is your “code.” You go to a table with a little flag with your code number on it, and there is a woman there. As you scan the room for whether the cuties outside are now inside (and the woman at your table is doing the same), the event coordinator explains the process:
- You will have 3 to 5 minutes to talk with each other
- The bell rings, and you go to the next table. No lollygagging! Go to the table plus one from you.
- There are x tables. When you get to x, your next table is #1.
- Everyone looks at the people at Table #1. This is your moment to shine!
- Write your notes about people you meet on the paper in front of you. Put your name, phone number, and code number on it now.
- Good luck. We start… now! (ding!)
You scribble on the paper your name and number. You try to talk with the person. The bell rings. You stand up and…
- The one cutie in the room is being hogged by a guy who won’t move onward
- The woman sitting at the next table already rolls her eyes about you
- Or vice versa
- You sit down
- You avoid the drink or appetizer plate left behind by some other guy. Sloppy seconds?
- You write notes about the previous woman
- She is writing notes about the other man
- You’re interested in what she’s writing, or what the woman at the previous table is writing about you
- The woman across from you is eyeing your notes about her competition
- You talk
- The bell rings, and you do it again!
- And again and again, fifteen, twenty times in a night
- Maybe there is a “blank” where someone didn’t show up. Your adrenaline is racing (hopefully). It feels like you’re in the penalty box at the Stanley Love Cup Playoffs. But create for yourself a more enjoyable context: you can catch your breath or order a drink! I always ordered two: one for now, one to carry along.
Are you good enough?
What happens in the brief few minutes of talking? Most women have prepared questions. I’ve seen laminated cards with questions! This isn’t bad; it keeps her “on task” to using good questions to find out about you, and not be distracted or dulled by someone’s nauseating cologne, her too many/few drinks, her lack of dinner. However, this also has her completely dominate the interview—I mean, discussion. Can you get a question in edgewise?
Yes, I do mean interview. Speed dating is like a job fair, going from table to table handing over your romantic resume to be judged and evaluated. After all, we know that people make their initial impression within one minute, and finalize it within three. After that, all the talk is listened through the filter to pick out things to justify the decision already made. This is the rational mind at work, supporting the emotional mind, which is how all purchase decisions are made, be they a date prospect, job hire, car, snack food, or music download. Wonder why the M&A mantra is: “sex sells?” Why else do software companies put sexy women on billboards? What is so alluring about version 32.3.twenty-seven of a program which simulates transistor circuits? So why is that slinky brunette in the picture… doing nothing? She’s not doing nothing; she’s selling.
The women will ask you these most-common questions at each table. Practice your answers in advance and trim them time-wise so you can get your offense on the field:
- What do you do for a living?
- How long have you been there? (Or some other question aimed at your overall professional experience. She has a friend in HR who can take your degree, job level, and experience, look it up on the salary tables, and turn you into a $number. Another similarity between speed dating and interviewing.)
- Do you have kids? Or want them?
- Tell me about your last relationship. (In 36 seconds? Sure. No time-outs?)
- Have you been married?
Like every interview, you should have prepared questions. Try these:
- Tell me about your parents, their relationship with each other, and yours with them
- According to the CDC, a prime factor in the stability or longevity of a woman’s marriage is whether she comes from a single- or dual-parent home. Also, she is likely to repeat her mother’s relationship in her search for a first husband.
- What is your approach about food?
- You care about this. As Samuel L. Jackson says in Pulp Fiction, if your woman’s a vegetarian, then you are too.
- What are your habits about money?
- Money is the number one cause of marital problems. Infidelity is caused by other problems (like money) which surface as cheating.
- Name two cultures which you have no interest in.
- An “honesty” question. Unless she is Mother Theresa, there has to be someone, somewhere who annoys her or at least she doesn’t care about.
These are rather up-front questions for a date. Yes. The point of speed dating is rapid filter-out. You probably wouldn’t use these questions on a First Date with a woman met from previous methods. You will need to work up to these through endless hours of talking about Dancing with the Stars, Lost, and other crucially important things. This is where Russian women differ from American women: Russian ladies like to get to these “real” issues quickly.
If during the evening you start to hear music in your head, listen. It sounds like Gerry Rafferty and Stealers Wheel:
Well I don’t know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain’t right,
I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.
After the rotations portion of the evening, you give your notes paper to the coordinator. You are encouraged to mingle while the papers are tabulated for mutual interests. Your mingling is confined to the speed dating room, not the other part of the restaurant where all the ladies you were checking out at the beginning of the evening may or may not still be sitting.
Just when you thought it couldn’t be more awkward, it does! Here you are, trying to mingle with the one or two ladies you liked. And so is everyone else. And she has written opinions about all of you and is waiting to find out if the guy she likes is interested in her. What do you say? “Hi, what did you write about me?” Actually, this is the perfect question.
After the event, you will be exhausted, hungry, with a headache. Maybe you will have a dessert with one of ladies. Score! Odds are against it. If speed dating were so successful, why do people groan at the mention of it, and be embarrassed to admit they’ve done it? Speed dating has become so unproductive, that now you can speed date online! From the safety of your house! You save mileage, parking, bar and restaurant bills. You learn how to use your webcam, but stay away from those Niche sites after the event flops. The women in the Russian Bride ads start to look tempting. Take a peek? There are a lot of Russian Bride agencies. How do I sort them all out?
Benefit: You get the t-shirt that says, “Been there; done that”
Cost: Your self-respect
Cost/Benefit Analysis: Not worth it
So what to do next? We’ve exhausted low-cost (or seemingly low-cost) options. Let’s take some serious action! The kind that my company would do when faced with a major problem! Part 6: Throw Money at the Problem! Adventure Clubs and Dinner Clubs.
