Speed-dating: Alien or Predator?
We were sprawled in the grass, me and a close guy friend (read: ex-intermittent lover), drinking Czech beer from brown paper bags when I brought it up. It was one of the first real days of spring---sunny enough to make you feel guilty for not spending every last second in a city park, and not quite warm enough to fully enjoy.
"I'm thinking of trying speed-dating with some girlfriends, you know, for kicks," I said. I was talking myself into it because I'd already promised to go with them, and we'd already childishly, unethically and without concern for the feelings of others, made side bets on the outcome.
"Everything I know about speed-dating, I learned from Alien Loves Predator," he said, and gave me a run-down of the basics as interpreted by a comic, further interpreted by him.
While an awkward evening of asking all the wrong guys inappropriate questions would make a story, good or bad (and I am usually a sucker for that), the more I thought about it, the more I feared complete humilation. "What if no one checks my box?" I whined for reassurance that the little adventure wouldn't go hideously wrong, call up karma, and crush my self-esteem.
"Well, you don't have to worry about that for two reasons," he said. "First, you're a total flirt. And second, no one will detect your neuroses in under 10 minutes."
We were sprawled in the grass, me and a close guy friend (read: ex-intermittent lover), drinking Czech beer from brown paper bags when I brought it up. It was one of the first real days of spring---sunny enough to make you feel guilty for not spending every last second in a city park, and not quite warm enough to fully enjoy.
"I'm thinking of trying speed-dating with some girlfriends, you know, for kicks," I said. I was talking myself into it because I'd already promised to go with them, and we'd already childishly, unethically and without concern for the feelings of others, made side bets on the outcome.
"Everything I know about speed-dating, I learned from Alien Loves Predator," he said, and gave me a run-down of the basics as interpreted by a comic, further interpreted by him.
While an awkward evening of asking all the wrong guys inappropriate questions would make a story, good or bad (and I am usually a sucker for that), the more I thought about it, the more I feared complete humilation. "What if no one checks my box?" I whined for reassurance that the little adventure wouldn't go hideously wrong, call up karma, and crush my self-esteem.
"Well, you don't have to worry about that for two reasons," he said. "First, you're a total flirt. And second, no one will detect your neuroses in under 10 minutes."
