Matchmaker…Part II

I’m so, so tired….and yet 1) it’s only 9:47 p.m. (yes, I’m old), 2) I really feel like writing even though I have no coherent ideas of what to write about and 3) if I go to bed now, not only will I be officially lame, even worse — I will miss tonight’s episode of The Hills. (Yes, I know it’s largely staged and most of the people on the show are almost unwatchably annoying. But somehow I still love it. Hey, a girl’s gotta have her guilty pleasures!)

Anyway, after my last post complaining about my mom’s long distance matchmaking efforts, I feel the need to clear things up. First of all, I’m not necessarily opposed to matchmaking in general. In fact, I think meeting someone through a friend is sort of an ideal way to meet someone –though I’d rather it be more organic, like at a party or group event as opposed to a bonafide setup. But even a real blind date set up by a friend is not so much different than going out with the string of Match.com guys I’ve gone out with recently (and a friend of a friend is somewhat less likely to be an A-hole than some of the dudes I’ve encountered on Match). So, in case any of my friends reading this have some great catch of a guy in mind for me but are holding back on playing matchmaker, fear not! I’m nothing if not openminded. My mother just falls into…a special category, I guess.

But, I admit to you and you only, dear readers (I will NOT say this to my mom, lest she redouble her efforts) that Mom’s colleague’s son, who I expected to be some weird snotty punk was actually….(gulp)…fairly adorable. Nothing’s going to come of it — he emailed me soon after our lunch and I emailed back and invited him to a networking event this week, and heard nothing — but still, it’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised.

I also decided, with the lapsing of my Match subscription and my firm’s recent emphasis on marketing and business development, that I’m going to refocus my efforts on networking instead of dating. Sort of a kill 2 birds w/ one stone type thing. I counted it up and realized that in the past 6 months, I went out on dates (between 1 date and 5 dates) with eight different online guys. And, while some of them were perfectly nice, most of them I only went out with once or twice and then we never spoke again. And it makes me think, Geez, what a waste of my time to spend hours with someone who I may have no connection with whatsoever, when I can be going to events where I meet a bunch of different people — who may be friends, business contacts, or romances — but in any event would be fun. So that is my new strategy.

And, sure enough, I got a chance to put this strategy to work last Thurs. My co worker and I went to a happy hour that was put together by a girl, N., who I met through my friend D. a few weeks ago. We met up at X-Bar in Century City and ended up sitting around one of the fire pits outside and ordering some appetizers. People continued to trickle in and we got a pretty good group. I ended up sitting next to one particular guy and we started chatting. About an hour ended up going by without me even noticing! He’s smart, cute, has a great laugh, has a super interesting job — and even watches The Hills! My little heart went pitter patter. When my co worker and I left, he and I exchanged business cards, he said “Let’s be in touch” and joked “Sleep tight.” My co worker later told me that she had been spying on us and that he seemed into me.

Now, my dear readers, you know that I am pretty clueless about how to deal with guys in general and that I am constantly breaking “The Rules.” Even though I break them, I at least know what the rules are when you’ve gone on a date with a guy – you’re supposed to wait for him to contact you. But what about this situation, when the guise of the card exchange (if not the real intent) is just networking? My co worker advised me to wait until Wed or Thurs this week and then email him. I think that’s probably smart. But I still wish he’d email or call me 1st! If there are any guys who read this (I’m not sure there are), what do you think about the subject?

Anyway, if nothing else he was a fun guy to chat with…and after so much time meeting guys on my computer screen, it’s just refreshing to know I’m still capable of going out and meeting people in “real” life!

Now I’m really off to bed….more soon!

xoxo
SF