Speed Dating

As some of you know, this past Thursday, I went speed dating (http://www.speeddating.com). This is my story. Names have been changed to protect the participants. We are none of us innocent.

First, some background. Speed dating is for Jews only. Jews and lesbians, actually. The Stranger runs something called The Lesbian Taste Test that is the same thing, but Jews had it first. Naturally.

The deal is that you spend an evening with like-minded single Jews and rotate through seven 7 minute "dates'. At the end of the evening, you mark down which of the people you talked to you would like to see again. If two people mark each other down, they are given one another's phone number and from there, Nature takes its course. Why Jews? Well, there's some concern in the Jewish community that the culture is getting assimilated and watered down, and a major factor is that 50% of Jews marry outside of the faith. Those concerned with preserving the integrity of The Tribe decided to do something about it. Those of us concerned with getting a little action appreciate the efforts of those concerned with preserving the integrity of the The Tribe.

I was a little nervous, more nervous than I thought I'd be. My attitude on the days and weeks leading up to this night was "what have I got to lose? Worst case scenario, I've got a hilarious story to tell my friends, best case...." Still, I stayed late at work finishing up low priority items and generally killing time and didn't get home in enough time to eat.

Speed dating is held at a different place each time (to discourage spoilers?). Tonight it was at the Pike Place Brewery in Pike Place Market, a distinctly bland, yuppie bar, which I would not blame anyone for mistaking for a TGI Fridays. I parked a few blocks away at a few minutes past 8 (always arrive late, don't want to appear too eager), took a slug from the flask of bourbon I keep under the passenger seat of my car (yes, I don't lock my car door, but please stay out of there!) and walked over.

The bar was mostly empty except for the speed daters in the back (whew! Although I'm sending this e-mail to all of G-d and His creation, it was a bit embarrassing being there, especially with the name tags. The fewer civilian witnesses, the better). I was greeted by Techiya, a determined, confident woman in a pantsuit and East Coast make up, classic New York Jew. I paid my $20 and she gave me my name tag ("Jordan #10") and my card.

The card was surprisingly professional. Mine was blue, girls got yellow. I expected something a bit more ad hoc, but it had the official speed dating logo on it, an area at the top for my contact info, then seven sections where I was to fill in the name and number of each of my dates, as well as answer Yes/No to the questions "Would you like to see this person again" and "Was this person friendly and respectful". The second question was to weed out the weirdos. The first question was what we were all there for. Yes/No.

We had about ten or fifteen minutes to shmooze before the games began. I quickly scoped the room. Twelve women. More or less what I expected. A few hotties, a couple big hairs, a couple Jewish noses and some nice girls I'd like to hang out with, but couldn't see lighting the loins.

The competition: ten men (one was a no show). One's eye seemed to point in the wrong direction, many appeared to have consumed more than their fair share of energy bars without corresponding physical activity, one was dressed in an ill-fitting coat and tie. Mousse had been carefully applied to maximize the coverage of thinning hair. To all my shiksa friends who wished they could participate: you didn't miss much.

There were three clumps of people already established. A group of 5 (three women, two men), a group of three women and a man talking to two women. There wasn't a clear empty chair with any of the groups, so I started off sitting at a table by myself, filled out my form studiously and looked around with that sense of purpose that someone with no purpose can adopt when they desperately don't want to look alone. Alright, this is no way to live. Techiya finished chatting with the three women at the table next to mine, there was an empty chair, I made my move.

Diagonally across from me sat Katrina #3. She was a bit tall for my taste, but her jet black hair, sharp features, precisely understated make up and the stylish clothes set her out. To my right is Jessica #1, blond, typically large Jewish nose but otherwise good looking. Across from me is...ummm...obviously didn't make an impression, 'nuf said on that score.

We start with the small talk. No, none of them has ever done this before. The only rule is that you're not allowed to say what you do for a living, I guess they're afraid that too many bland conversations will result (later, Marcy #2 will lean over to me conspiratorially and ask me what I do...she proudly confesses that she plans to corrupt all the men here this evening with her outlawed question). As the evening wears on, I come to believe they should also prohibit "So where are you from?" and "what brought you to Seattle?" if this is truly their goal.

Fortunately, a friend of mine has done this previously, so I have anticipated the trap of the banal "where are you from? What brought you to Seattle?" conversation. I mix it up. I mention that I just met a couple women who did the lesbian version of Speed Dating last week. They were quite content with it. In fact, when the bell rung at the end of their 10 minutes (lesbians, apparently, need a bit more time than Jews to make these kinds of judgments), they refused to rotate and told their new partners to just skip by them. We joked that Techiya would have none of that.

"OK people, go to your tables. No, stay where you are, you'll be able to hear me better," Techiya announces. She lays out the ground rules. No asking someone out, no asking for a phone number, no asking whether someone is marking you "Yes", no talking about work (Later, Marcy #2 will lean over to me conspiratorially and tell me that last time she speed dated, Techiya said you weren't allowed to ask about someone's criminal background, but apparently someone got hurt, so they don't disallow the question now. Oddly, it came up in a few conversations).

We each are to start at the table with our number (thus, I'll be starting at Table #10). Every seven minutes, they'll ring the bell and the boys move to the table 2 higher (I'll be at #10, #12, #2, #4). Following the first four, they'll be a break, during which time we can mingle with the folks we may not have a chance to "date". There's a "wildcard" spot at the bottom of the card where we can write in the names and numbers of women we may want to see again but who we don't actually get to meet in the speed date rounds.

Clean blond curls, cheery face, white teeth, she's a party girl. It's both of our first dates, so we're a bit nervous, but the conversation goes smoothly. In consultation with friends beforehand, I had established that my ice breaker question would be "So, what do you do for fun?" I figured it would give people an opportunity to talk about themselves (everybody's favorite subject) and would hopefully be something they care about. Ruby says she likes to dance.

I'm a bit put off by both extremes, but appreciate a woman who isn't stuck in a small space. I say that while I don't have quite the range of taste she does, I like to dance as well (although I don't mention that most of my dancing was done at Dead shows) and mention a few of the clubs I go to. She says she knows the bartender at a couple of them, and, while she won't tell me what she does (following the rules), she does mention that she used to be a bartender and likes to drink at bars where she knows the bartender. Stronger, cheaper drinks. My kind of gal.

I made the mistake of mentioning I am a vegetarian. Ruby declared, with quite a bit of relish, that she had had a big steak for dinner that night. I tried reassuring
her that I didn't mind, that I wasn't religious about it, but I think some
meat eaters see their love of meat as a masculine-power thing.

There are three basic reactions I get when I tell people I'm a vegetarian. They apologize, they're impressed or they scoff. The apologizers explain that they really don't eat much meat and wish they could be vegetarian, but they just can't give up something (shrimp is a frequent one, as is the ubiquitous hamburger). Those who are impressed ask how long I've been a vegetarian and applaud my resolve, without reference to themselves. Then there are the scoffers. They sing the praises of meat, sometimes trying to entice me with warm words about a tender, juicy steak, or else they try to engage me in some tired logical argument about the moral necessity of vegetarianism ("but how can you kill those tender plants? Don't they have a right to live, too?")

Usually, I have little tolerance for the scoffers, as I hope meat eaters have little tolerance for the religiously vegetarian. Last night, though, with her pencil and card in hand, Ruby #10's scorn for my diet hit low and deep. I could see hear it in her voice. Vegetarian? Jesus, did I like to grow flowers too? Did I even have a penis? How could it get erect without the meat and blood of a juicy steak running through my veins? Damn, Ruby #10 should have given me her yellow card and taken my blue one.

We exchange recommendations of good restaurants, make jokes about our criminal backgrounds and she frequently leans towards me and laughs (which I take as a good sign). The bell rings.

I can't tell you too much about Cindy. From the moment I sat down, I knew where it was going (or not going), so I was more or less killing seven minutes. She was a friendly enough woman, but her mannish features didn't leave me hankering to get a mark on her card. The conversation was as you'd expect. She was from Kansas. Or Minneapolis (no offense, Raina). Or Wisconsin. She went to University of someplace. She recently moved to Seattle and was trying to meet people. She liked to see movies and go out and watch TV. Five minutes and thirty seconds to go.

She consults the laminated list of questions. "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" it asks. Cindy is confident of her answer: "I'm married with two children." The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. Five minutes and 10 seconds to go. I make a half-hearted response to the question ("sure, I'll probably be married [oops, almost say 'again', but I've decided to keep my divorcé status to myself this evening], and I dig kids...but that's not the focus of my life.") She proudly confesses that she doesn't care much for her work, but it doesn't matter, because she just plans on getting married. Four minutes and twenty seconds.

Marcy broke the rules. First off, the age group was wrong. All the people there were between 25 and 35, but Techiya told me that the men would be between 30 and 35 and the women between 25 and 30. Marcy was older than 30. Marcy may have been older than 35. Her face was full of character, good looking, if slightly wizened. She had the dark circles under her eyes of someone who hasn't had enough sleep for too many nights running, and the sharp, playful smile of someone who enjoys not getting enough sleep for too many nights running.

Marcy asked me what I do for a living. When I told her I was program manager at Microsoft, she confessed to being a program manager at a local high tech company that will remain nameless. Her last few days sounded surprisingly similar to mine. Something broke in a terribly catastrophic way and she spent night and day trying to get it fixed. Crisis was no way to make progress, we agreed, but it beats boring.

A brief pause. I break out my icebreaker. "So what do you do for fun?" Marcy plays with her pit bull ("oh, but he's really a sweetie") and rides her motorcycle. I think I like Marcy. I try to impress her by mentioning that I spent the previous evening at a going away party for a couple friends who will be travelling from England to Japan on motorcycle. She is duly impressed, but crows that she will be spending the summer scuba diving in Turkey and Greece. My eyes light up. I scuba dive too, I tell her. The bell rings, we high five and I move on.

It was the Friday before the Monday on which Desert Shield became Desert Storm, and there was a buzz in the air. I passed a house with a huge sheet hanging out the window with a peace sign painted on it. There was music coming from inside and people in the window drinking. OK, it's a party. I like parties. I walk by a few times, gather my nerve, and go in. There's a keg in the back corner of the room, so I head straight towards it. As I'm pouring myself a beer, I get a tap on my shoulder.

I sit down with Sam #6, but first Techiya's husband Chaim has something to say. Chaim is a tallish, handsome man wearing jeans, a pale oxford button down and the simple, tight-knit kippah (yarmoulke) you see often in Israel and the Northeast, but not often in the Northwest. He has something to say about love, and how you shouldn't be afraid of loss of passion. He asks if anyone knows the Hebrew word for love. It is ahavah, he tells us. What is the root of ahavah? Hav. Hav is Hebrew for give. The heart of loving is giving. I don't follow all of what he's saying, but his passion and the Kabbalistic turn his speech has taken makes me want to bark out loud laughing, it stands in such humorous contrast to the desperately corporeal dance we've been twisting throughout the evening.

I tell him how much I enjoyed his speech and that, while not particularly religious myself, I was fascinated by Kabbalistic and mystical Judaism. I tell him about my brief stay in Tzfat, the ancient town in northern Israel to which the occultist Jews of Spain fled in the 13th century when the Inquisition was in full swing. He speaks fondly of it, but pronounces that all of Judaism is mystical. All of the world is mystical, everything that we see is just an illusion. Everything is truly G-d, so what we take for the world is merely illusion.

I am surprised, I didn't know that this was a Jewish way of thinking. I tell him that I am familiar with the Aristotalean view that our material experience of the world is to reality as shadows cast on a cave wall is to the object of the shadow, but that I didn't realize that this was a Jewish way of thinking. No, he said, that was Plato who said that. I thank him, he may have saved me much embarrassment later in the evening, should I have made the same mistake with one of my speed dates.

He tells me that the Hebrew word for truth is spelled aleph mem tuf. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, mem the middle and tuf the last. Balance. Truth is about balance. He tells me that his arm is made of spinning electrons, but it's all mystical, it's all G-d. There is no dichotomy between material and spiritual, there is only spiritual. 1 + 0 = 2 he tells me. 1 (G-d) + 0 (His creations) = 2 (the illusion of dichotomy between G-d and that which He creates). I am fascinated. I want to talk with him about this all night, to suggest to him that by destroying the distinction between G-d and not G-d, the concept of G-d loses meaning, because things can only be defined by their opposites. But I am a man on a mission, and he is not it. I tell him that I wish to continue this conversation another time, and he nods knowingly. "Go meet women!" he commands. Yes, Chaim, yes. I must go meet women.

Ruby #10 had finished her first double vodka and sour and moved on to her second. I ordered myself a Maker's rocks and focused my attention on Jude #7. She, in my opinion, was a bit of tragedy. Of all the women I spoke to that evening, she was the only one who I would say is really my people. Earthy and strong, she didn't wear hair spray or make up. We talked about how to set the bar, how good someone had to be before it was worth giving them a "Yes". She was practical, logical and carefree. The tragedy was that she was simply not attractive to me "that way". I considered asking Techiya if I could exchange numbers with someone I WASN'T interested in dating, but who would make a good friend.

Petite, even dwarfish, Sam #6 liked all manner of outdoor sport, hiking, biking, camping, etc. I kept staring at her unnaturally small hands, hoping this wasn't as big a faux pas as the one Jason #2 had committed. She read, she watched TV, she went to the movies. She was new to Seattle, recently moved from Wisconsin...or Minneapolis...or Kansas. Something. They began to run together. Ding Ding.

Alright, so here's something to know about me. I have trouble dating women taller than me. Dunno why, just the way I am. Otherwise an attractive woman, Tanya towered over me. No matter what she said, this was going to be a No. We chatted about books (she jotted down my recommendation of Guns, Germs and Steel, but we both agreed we preferred fiction to non-fiction. She recommended a book called Badness to me). Ding ding.

No two ways about it, Alison #11 was a hottie. A moussed out, tarted up, baby doll hottie, but a hottie, nonetheless. She had never been camping, but really wanted to try some time, if it were under the right circumstances [read: a place to plug in my hair dryer], she didn't read much, but liked to watch TV. Sigh. Four minutes left. Such a shame, such a shame. Ding ding.

That's it. Shows over. Time to go folks. I check my card. Part of me wants to mark "Yes" next to all of them, just so I'll know which ones have marked me, but Techiya was quite clear. The boys would be given the numbers of the girls and the girls would be expecting a phone call. Failure to call a make a date within 4 days disqualified you from future future dating episodes, and this was WAY too much fun and it wasn't worth a bland evening with even hottie Alison #10 just to know that she marked me.

I've marked Yes by Ruby and Marcy. I add Jessica #3 and Katrina in the wildcard session. Jude catches me on the way out, we commiserate about our final three rounds. Chaim tells me he will send me e-mail, he invites everyone to shabbat. I will take him up on it. Mystical.

Tune in next week when we discover whether any of these Jewesses mark ME down?