Speed Dating - 'If Wes Anderson did pornography...'

“Were you optimistic enough about this evening to have deployed a tactical wank before coming out?”

“Were you optimistic enough about this evening to have deployed a tactical wank before coming out?”

This isn’t, I’d wager, the opening line a guy expects to hear when he sits across a table from you to endure the five minutes of mandatory small talk during the arse-clenchingly awkward living hell that is Speed Dating, but it rarely fails to provoke an entertaining reaction.

But, in my defence, I was bored.

If you’ve been lucky enough to avoid it, let me explain that Speed Dating is agonisingly awful. It somehow enhances all of the dreary excesses of small talk alongside the casual disappointment of regular dating, whilst simultaneously stripping anything even remotely enjoyable from the experience. I can only imagine it was created purely as a means to prove that, when it comes down to it, perhaps there are some circumstances in which being single and lonely is preferable to the alternative.

It’s essentially a meat-market, except you’re first forced to engage in idle chit-chat with the tenderloin you intend to consume. And, just like at a meat-market, in most cases the potential meals would simply rather not be eaten at all.

In hindsight I feel this analogy may only have confused things.

In case you’re unaware; A Speed Dating evening consists of women sitting at numbered tables around a venue, while guys move round and spend a five minutes at a time in each of their companies. This is timed by the host - usually a slightly post middle-aged woman who believes herself to be a Machiavellian romanticist, but who believes Machiavelli to be a type of exotic Italian pasta - who either blows a whistle or rings a bell when time has elapsed, signalling it’s time to move on. At the end of the evening everyone secretly lists which numbers they’d consider meeting again and the lists are compared in private for potential matchups.

It’s an in-person Tinder. Except rather than having the luxury of being able to immediately swipe left on the non-preferred, you’re instead required to spend five minutes attempting pleasantries.

I’ve been Speed Dating twice in my life. The first time was as a student wherein it was presented more as an excuse to meet fellow first years. Coming as it did though only a week after Freshers it was rendered somewhat inconsequential. The vast majority of those willing to sign up for such an event had already become intimately acquainted the week prior.

Or perhaps that was just me. It was less an opportunity to meet new people, than a second chance to actually learn individual’s *names*.

My second Speed Dating experience time came around due to a friend being inexplicably eager to ‘give it a go’, but being entirely unwilling to try it out alone. I was volunteered to be her accompaniment, despite my best protestations at the time. A great many favours were owed to me as a result of that night.

The venue was a somewhat grim and grotty bar. All of the tables had A4 sized numbers in creased laminated pouches stuck to them, giving more the atmosphere of a police line up than one of potentially burgeoning romance. I ended up being seated on the other side of the room to my friend, rendering my supportive presence entirely irrelevant, but Wendy - the mid-fifties trying her best to pull off late thirties but missing by twenty years - insisted these things work best when friends aren’t near each other. “Each of the men is deserving of your full attention,” I was told in no uncertain terms.

I wasn’t much a fan of Wendy.

We took our seats and the guys were unleashed from their holding pen in the next room. I, having potentially been eyed as a troublemaker, had been seated at the far end of the bar, so only got an initial look at those who were taking their seats in my immediate vicinity.

I don’t want to sound cruel or callous but, from my initial assessment based on the five or so I could see, all of the participants seemed to share one characteristic in common;

The unmistakable whiff of desperation.

Now, don’t get me wrong; we’ve all been there. But, personally, Speed Dating doesn’t strike me as an ideal solution to quench *those* particular urges.

To put not too fine a point on it, the men present seemed to be participating because a guaranteed five minutes in a woman’s company would be well in excess of what they could usually achieve.

I’ll not single anyone out in particular, but broadly speaking the men could be categorised into two groups: Those entirely devoid of charisma, or those who were simply trying far too hard.

Never in my life have been forced to endure such a barrage of inane wittering, questioning and droning. God help me I tried to be civil, polite and encouraging, but I only have so much patience and I can only die a little inside so many times.

Which was why I started asking my winning opening question:

“Were you optimistic enough about this evening to have deployed a tactical wank before coming out?”

Responses tended to group into three categories:

The Offended - “Excuse me?!” “That’s incredibly inappropriate…” etc.

The Embarrassed - These tended to include few words but a great deal of going red, turning bashful and, in several cases, being entirely unable to look me in the eye for the next five minutes.

The Liars - Some gamely attempted to answer the question with a ‘No’. However, almost without fail, those that actually *did* answer in the negative were clearly lying. In one rather unpleasant instance it was so obvious that I got the impression that was literally what he’d been doing whilst waiting in the holding room. I even cautiously checked his hands for residue.

But one answer stood out from the crowd:

“Hell no. A snake without venom is basically a belt.”

I’m reasonably sure he was paraphrasing a Family Guy quote, but he delivered it utterly deadpan and whilst staring me down unflinchingly.

*This* was a guy worthy of five minutes.

It passed by in the blinking of an eye. Infuriatingly so. Proving beyond doubt how utterly inane the concept of Speed Dating is - You spend great swathes of time with the tedious and, when you finally find someone worth engaging with, the damn whistle blows and they move on, potentially to never be seen again.

I suggested he break the rules and just stay at my table regardless. He looked as though I was suggesting we burn the place to the ground. He was eyeing Wendy the whole time and may have been genuinely fearful of her stern gaze.

Coward.

So instead I suggested something else. Partially as a joke, but mostly to once again gauge his response.

“Fine. In two whistles time I’m going to make an excuse and head to the bathroom. If you care to join me we can chat some more and we’ll even see about de-venomizing that snake…”

The whistle blew again, hurrying him along.

I didn’t register a single word the following two guys said to me. I was too busy wondering if the snake would take the bait.

After the second whistle, I stood up and began to walk toward the bathroom. I made it all of five steps before I was accosted by Wendy.

“If you would’t mind sticking to the planned break times please. It’s not fair to leave a gentleman sitting there all on his own now, is it?”

She spoke sweetly but the passive aggressive undertone was barely concealed. I pitched my reply to match it:

“I appreciate that, Wendy. But I’m an adult and don’t need to be told when I’m allowed to take a piss, thank you very much.”

She rocked back on her heels as though I’d slapped her. It was the second most satisfying thing to happen that night.

The bathrooms were individual stalls rather than gendered, so I loitered outside as he’d otherwise have no idea where I’d gone. Not that I actually expected him to turn up. Even if he’d wanted to, I got the sense he wouldn’t have the manhood to stand up to Wendy.

Delightfully, I was wrong.

He approached several minutes after I’d stood up, looking almost giddy with delight. I couldn’t tell whether this was at the prospect of his snake potentially having earned itself a meal, or simply as a result of having stood up to Wendy.

Regardless, we stepped into the cubicle together and essentially picked up our conversation where we left off.

We chatted about our mutual loathing of Speed Dating and discussed what precisely had brought two such pessimsists here - It turns out we were both in the company of rather more enthusiastic friends - And we broached the subject of the worst first impressions we’d achieved so far.

For parity, it seems my criticism of the men-folk present was matched cringe-for-cringe with some of the women in attendance.

He’d been subjected to at least three individuals so utterly devoid of personality that they’d barely managed more than two word sentences at any given moment, and had made no attempt to actually make or drive conversation at all. One five minute round had been spent attempting to calm a partner seemingly on the verge of tears, and one had soent the entire duration monolguing about how terrible each of her exes were, and why she was very nearly off men for good. He’d just about managed to say ‘hello’ when the whistle blew.

I apologised profusely on behalf of all women. He did likewise on behalf of all men.

I graciously accepted his apology, and suggested now might be a good time to get his cock out.

He looked at me with the same face of shock and surprise as Wendy had presented earlier.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “Was the point here not to see about getting some venom out of that snake?”

His face remained a perfect picture of dumbstruck confusion. The horrible realisation landed that he’d perhaps simply joined me in the bathroom for a casual chat after all. That it was an escape from the insanity of the speed dating, but not with actual lacivious intent. In the other room it could’ve been passed off as more jokey ‘banter’, but stood here in an actual toilet cubicle it was going to be near impossible to style out my catasrophic error in judgement. I could picture him feeling to cower behind Wendy, who would proceed to beat me to a bloody pulp with her weighty handbag for daring to upset one of ‘her men’.

Mercifully, this didn’t happen. What did occur was arguably even more bizarre.

I swear his face didn’t move a muscle and was still locked into the slightly furrowed brow of befuddlement as he reached down almost as an unconscious action to unbutton his flies and pull out his cock without saying another word.

I’d clearly broken the poor man.

His cock was, and there really is no kind way of saying this; disappointing in every conceivable way. I’m no size-queen and fully believe that you can have tremendous fun with any and every size and shape of genitalia, but this was a singularly remarkable specimin.

It’d only be a slight exaggeration on my part to say I’ve seen outie bellybuttons larger.

I saw now why such an engaging guy had resorted to speed dating, I thought to myself, somewhat uncharitably.

But now his cock was out - if it technically could even qualify as being out when it barely possessed the sufficient length to protrude from the opening of his jeans - and his face whilst still unchanged was now somehow expectant and so, never being one to back down, I set to work.

Whilst fully intended to deploy the *speed* portion of the event.

I couldn’t so much take his cock in my hand as it would’ve been lost, so instead held it between my thumb and forfinger and began to stroke.

The feeling of his cock in my - fingers - was somewhat unsual, as clearly at some stage during his development his body had assumed he’d lengthen over time and as such had provided what can only be described as - and I apologise wholeheartedly for the following phrase - an abundence of foreskin. There was enough going spare to have comfortably fit his cock within three times over.

It was like trying to grapple a windsock.

As if this wasn’t hindrance enough, the cerebral short curcuit he’d apparently been struck by upon hearing the offer continued unabated, as he failed to engage in the action at all, content seemingly to stand and enjoy silently while I engaged in a game of hunt the prick in an apparent haystack of loose elbow-skin.

While I continue the micro-movements that constituted stroking his cock I once again engageed him in conversation regarding the speed dating. Inexplicably this rather than tremours upon his sexual organ roused him from his fugue like state as he slipped back into merrily chatting, almost oblivious as to what was happening below the belt.

Such was the lack of engagement with my actions, I asked him if he’d like me to stop.

“Fuck no! This is great, and I’m really close!”

It was difficult to know which was the most surprising part of his statement. But I had no time to ponder as he slipped immediately back to discussing the brief interaction he’d had with his partner before departing to meet me.

Barelt a minute into his anecdote ee paused and asked as casually as if he’d asked me the time;

“Would you mind if I came?”

Fearing I may have slipped into a strange parallel world of Wes-Anderson pornography, I couldn’t help but laugh.

I was still laughing when he climaxed moments later and jizzed onto the inside of the bathroom door. I’ve seen larger loads fall from a dripping tap. He may have been lying about having emptied the tank ahead of the evening.

As I washed my hands he asked if I’d be interested in him returning the favour. I answered that perhaps that would be best saved for later, as we didn’t want to spend too long in here and risk the wrath of Wendy. He reluctantly agreed.

I reentered the Speed Dating room and took my place back at my table where a poor man had been sat solo. He looked more downtrodden than annoyed.

“Sorry about that,” I said, brightly. “I was just wanking a former occupant of that chair off in the bathroom. I’d offer the same, but I don’t think there’s long enough left…”

Come the end of the night , everyone had to submit their potential matches. I figured it would be objectively funnier if I deliberately *didn’t* match with bathroom guy, figuring I’d see him afterwards anyway.

Wendy accused me of being a disruptive influence who was ‘actively intimidating’ the “poor gentlemen”. Sure enough, my match list was ego-dentingly short.

It turned out my friend had found the experience to be equally loathsome, but had *also* matched with bathroom guy. I suggested she should make a move.

She got a date, I made a speedy escape.