The motto I try to live by is, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's if there's a story to tell."
With that in mind, I agreed to attend an event by an organization called "Date and Dash."
It was a Speed Dating event.
I signed up for a Speed Dating event.
Yes, an event in which you theoretically have over 20 first dates.
Each lasting 5 minutes.
You know, just enough time to get a great superficial opinion on a person.
Maybe that's too harsh.
Supposedly, it's just long enough to discover a first-impression spark.
But all that doesn't matter right now.
These people, from their site, don't matter right now:
Last night, Wednesday October 1, was the date my friends and I selected.
Selected after batting around this idea for close to ten months.
We finally did it, got all our ducks in a row, agreed on a date, and paid $35 each.
Coincidentally, October 1 was also the first day of the Major League Baseball playoffs.
Specifically, the first game of the Chicago Cubs post season.
I assume that Date and Dash selected a Wednesday Night in October thinking it would be a low key environment. Yes, it was in a bar - but who goes to bars in the middle of the week? Or, more importantly, what large group of people would cram into a Chicago Suburban Bar to the extent to overtake the entire venue?
The answer are these people:
So last night I rushed home from work.
Got into the shower.
Remarkably shaved without causing excessive facial bleeding (a rarity on nights when I try to make good first impressions to the opposite sex)
Spritzed on some cologne.
Put on my nice jeans, freshly polished black leather shoes and a button down that I know looks good because it was a bought as a gift from MySister...
All for naught.
For some fifteen minutes before my friend was about to drive up to my curb my phone rang.
I listened to the news that the crowd at the bar that came to watch the Cubs game was so large that there would be no space for the speed dating event.
The event was cancelled.
And I hung up the phone.
Officially all dressed up and no where to go.
This is what it must feel like to get stood up to the power of twenty.
It didn't feel good.
For months, the nervous energy had been pent up.
I was finally ready mentally, although maybe not emotionally, for what I expected to be an exhausting event with potentially large ramifications.
Everyone who I told before October 1 of this plan had to be let down as well.
People came up to me today, with small specs of hope in their eyes.
Many of these, had lost hope from watching the before mentioned baseball team get blown out.
Hoping to hear a comedic story from yours truly.
The next chapter in the Romantic Tragedy that is my life.
These friends of mine are the unknown solider casualties of this lost battle.
But they may not have died in vain.
Their hopes may be resurrected.
For I did pay my $35.
Money that will be credited towards another event on Date and Dash's schedule.
Stay tuned sports fans, stay tuned.
