Flibbertigibbet

The Date Cult

A few weeks ago a friend of mine invited me to go to this dating event here. It was to be facilitated by this guy who was supposed to teach us how to find and build relationships based on out deeply held values and some such. I don't think I really have a problem with that, but I thought I would go with my friend and -- who knows? -- maybe there would be someone interesting there.

It was... special.

At one point, we were arranged into two concentric circles where each circle would take turns asking each other questions like, "What's the last movie you saw that you enjoyed?" or "Tell me about your favorite pet or a pet that you'd like to have in the future."

Fracture. It's like a long episode of Law & Order and Anthony Hopkins reprises his Hannibal Lector persona this time as a man who plots to kill his wife. But it was interesting and I liked it better than Ocean 13, which I saw more recently.

In the future, I'd like a pet dinosaur. Any species would have its benefits, really, but I think I'd either like one that is big enough to carry me to work.

I was actually impressed with how insightful some people were. At one point, we were sitting in small groups and one guy observed that when it comes to finding men who share his values, he notices that some people share some of his values but often it turns out that they lack something important. He implied an understanding of the difference between essential and optional values. It turns out that he's a social worker. I don't know what values he was talking about, but I was still surprised.

The speaker was... special.

At one point he wanted to demonstrate that you can meet people with shared values by attending events and activities for gay men who share interests. The example he gave was going to a bath house.

I'm not SO interested in booty bumps and anonymous sex, but I really would like to know where the gay Objectivist nuclear physicist triathletes meet. I've begun scouring the internet, but I suspect that the only group probably meets in Switzerland. And I think it's a secret because I haven't found anything yet.

Another oddball activity was when he asked us to bow to one another instead of shaking hands.

He called two men to the center of our circles to demonstrate how people bow.

Thanks to my multiple post-graduate degrees in bending at the waist, I felt well prepared for any pop quizzes on this topic, but it was nice to have a little refresher. The two men opted for the prayer hands plus bow movement and showed the group. Most people imitated this, but I went with the far more advanced Japanese-style bow with my hands relaxed by my side. Once, I even had my hands clasped behind my back. I wowed everyone when I combined a handshake -- quite against the rules -- with a bow. I'm a bad boy.

The reason he wanted us to bow was because he said it was "more intimate." He asked the two men who demonstrated the yoga bow and they assured us all that it was "much more intimate" to not touch one another and perform a culturally foreign action as a means of greeting. I assured those who received my bow that I did not find it more intimate, but I was too pre-occupied thinking about how cool it would be to have a pet dinosaur to fuss over it.

I had fun at this event, but I felt bad for some of the people there. Many of them were older men who, I think, came to this event immediately following group therapy. There was a lot of talk of damaged self-esteem and most unfortunate family situations that I felt were out of place.

Later we were directed to give our phone number or email to people. I ended up with seven numbers and I gave my email to three people.

Since I was there with a couple of friends, we went for drinks afterward and we were joined by one of the guys I gave my number to. He's cute and funny, so we'll see.

All in all, it wasn't a complete waste of time, although I don't think I will do that again. But one of my friends who was with me there wants to go to Qwikdates now. Is that any worse than trolling the internet? I will say that it's a lot more engaging than sitting in a dark, crowded, noisy bar.