Lauren goes Speed Dating: Awkwardness Ensues

These are the facts that you should know.

I was bored and found an advertisement for speed dating in DC so I signed up and got my friend, Lindsey, to sign up with me. I put on my Sunday’s best and headed to the venue which can most accurately be described as “da club.” Immediately upon walking in I realized that Mr. Right was not in the crowd but I proceeded to take advantage of the open bar.

This is where the awkwardness begins....

The organizers had all the girls line up in front of the bar and then the guys rotated around us. We had to stand up the entire time, which was awkward in itself and we were also in a nightclub so it was really loud. Essentially it was a semi-organized bar scene but instead of just awkwardly exchanging looks with someone, you were forced to converse with them (speedily).

To be totally honest, there were like 12 “dates” and more than half of them were not memorable/entertaining but here is a recap of the ones that were. Also important to note, I was standing next to my friend Lindsey so I basically picked up her sloppy seconds the entire night.

Date #1 (Ag)
Ag looked like Gary Coleman—there is really no way to get around it. He was approximately 5’ (generous estimate) and was clearly pissed that we had to stand on our dates. I told him that he better buck up because this was only the first date and that girls wouldn’t like his negative attitude—probably not really what he wanted to be hearing, He told me he’s “never been to a speed dating event where you had to stand.” This seemed to imply that Ag has attended many speed dating events. He told me he liked movies and that if there was nothing good in the theatres he would just watch something in his Netflicks queue (fascinating!) and then, luckily, our 4 minutes was up.

Date #2 (Dan)
Dan was probably a really nice guy. The only problem was that I was physically incapable of telling Dan anything that remotely resembled the truth. He was clearly too old for me and I felt weird "flirting" with someone who could be my uncle so I started off big—I told Dan I was 28 and recently divorced. That didn’t seem to deter him at all and instead he calmly replied “So you’re the younger sister?” At first I had no idea what he was talking about and then I realized that he had just been on a date with Lindsey so I assumed that she too was unable to be honest with Dan. I basically spent the rest of our 4 minutes trying to pretend that I had actually grown up in Pittsburgh with Lindsey and our brother Logan (our parents loved the letter “L”!)

Date #9 (I have no idea what his name was)
This guy did not answer a single question I asked him…instead he would just pose them back to me. Our conversation went something like this:

“Hi, so how has your summer been?”
“How has your summer been?”
“Um…pretty good. So what kind of stuff do you like to do?”
“What kind of stuff do you like to do?”
“Are you serious?”
“Are you serious?”
And so on…

Date #12 (Z—short for Zhang)
All I can say about this kid is that he clearly watched an entire season of the VH1’s The Pick-Up Artist before coming out. For anyone who has seen the show--he opened up a "set" and dropped every line that Mystery has ever created including:
"So I have a question about my friend's girlfriend..."
"My little sister just got a tattoo and she asked me not to tell my parents..."
"Did you know your nose wiggles when you laugh? That's so cute."

After the “dates” were over I proceeded to get pretty drunk and mingle freely with my fellow speedsters. Nothing too eventful/I don't really remember what happened after that.


In conclusion, I think you all should go speed dating.

The end.