I went speed-dating tonight

Because a HurryDate (http://www.hurrydate.com/) speed-dating event I attended in the spring was rather sparsely attended, everyone there (the few of us who WERE there) got a credit to attend another one for free. Since it was going to expire at the end of this month, I finally hauled myself out to a HurryDate event tonight -- and I have to say, it was pretty fun. It was much better attended than the last event, I got to see the same cute host again, ;) and I met more than the usual number of guys I'd like to see again: 7 out of 22 -- almost 33%!

Not the first guy I talked to, though. He made this big show of saying, "I RARELY go south of Houston Street, but I decided to for tonight."

"Where do you live?" I asked.

"Jersey," he admitted. Um, I'm from Jersey. You can't be choosy about where in NYC you'll travel when you live in Jersey! He also picked the strangest topics of conversation, like, "There are more swimming pools in Long Island than in NJ." I thought, a) who cares? and b) seriously -- who cares!?

There were also some random men there who I already knew. Back when a friend and I were both unemployed in 2002, we used to go to these free parties and events where we eventually started seeing the same people over and over (which is why we eventually stopped going, ha!). Well, TWO of those guys were there tonight! One completely remembered me, and one didn't remember me in the slightest ("2002 was a long time ago," he said plaintively).

There was one guy there who was totally obnoxious, though. He was making up all these crazy stories, like that he was 48, "thrice-divorced" and had lost his kid to his ex-wife in his latest divorce, even though she wasn't the kid's mother. He even told the woman two seats away from me that he'd killed a guy in a bar fight the night before. (!!!) But he told the friend I went with, "I actually want to date you, so I'll tell you the truth," and explained that he's friends with someone who works for HurryDate, so since they were short a few guys tonight, his friend "made" him come to fill in, even though he's only 23 and the men for this event were supposed to be 35 - 45. So ridiculous. As my friend said, I'd rather sit there and do nothing for four minutes than waste my energy talking to some doofus who doesn't even want to be there. Ah well. At least he was entertaining.

But the strangest part of the evening was with one of the guys I'd met before at another speed-dating event a few months ago: the Artsy Photographer. I had liked him and chosen him, but he hadn't picked me (I didn't remind him about that part - awkward!). I remembered he had some sort of artsy hobby, and he said, "Oh yes, I do photography. Lately I've been doing pre-natal photography."

"Pre-natal?" I repeated, trying to figure out how you take a picture of a baby before it's born without using an ultrasound machine. But he explained that "pre-natal photography" means taking pictures of pregnant women.

"I actually have some photos with me if you'd like to see them," he said, pulling out his digital gizmo and passing it to me.

So I looked at the first photo: a pregnant woman, lying on her side in bed, wearing a halter top type of thing so her belly was bare. In the next photo, she was wearing even less clothing. They were beautiful photos and all, but it was bizarre to look at these intimate pictures of some pregnant woman taken by a guy I didn't really know, but who was sitting across from me. Then I got to the third photo. The woman was topless. OK. This was getting really weird.

"Great photos!" I said brightly, quickly passing the gizmo back to him.

After the event ended and most of the speed-daters had left, I was chatting with the friend I came with when suddenly she nudged me, hissing, "Look!" as she pointed to the bar. The cute host was totally making out with some woman! We weren't sure if she was one of the speed-daters or not, since we'd been paying more attention to the men. If she was, then wow -- good for her. That's putting the "hurry" in HurryDate!