A lady walked to the middle of the room and called for attention, "Hey, guys, if you're here for the speed dating event, please come towards me. We'll be starting in about 10 minutes. If you want, you can go and get a drink from the bar. I'm going to have the ladies come to the left when they've got their drink and then gentlemen that are here for the speed dating event, you can go to the right. If there are any gentlemen here that are just at the bar and haven't signed up for the speed-dating event, you could come and see me now and still sign up. We still have some spots available for some men and it's only $20 for the night."
I looked at Birdy and she looked at me, and we gave each other dry smiles. That wasn't a good sign that they were still trying to sign up more men. However, it was just for fun. We'd see what happened.
We walked over to the bar and Birdy offered to buy me a drink, "What do you want, girl? Sex on the beach?"
"No, maybe a rum and coke."
"You always get rum and cokes. They don't do anything to you."
"What do you mean they don't do anything to me?"
"They don't get you drunk. We need to get you drunk and loosened up so you can have a good night. You seem awfully tense."
"I'm not tense. I'm going to have fun."
"I know you want to have fun, but you don't seem like you're going to have fun. Ever since what's his name Tyler's been in town, you've been kind of anxious."
"Uh, I wouldn't say that but fine. Get me a margarita."
"Okay then. And what about shots first?"
"Um, if you want to do shots, sure."
"Yeah, let's do some shots. Let's get this party started tonight."
"Okay, Birdy, but we don't want things to go too crazy. We're just here to meet a nice guy. We're not here to have sex in the back with some rando."
"Ha ha, Olivia. I'm not the sort of girl that would have sex in the back. If I'm going to have sex with one of these guys tonight, it's going to be in the penthouse suite in some swanky hotel in Union Square. Hey!" She started singing and laughing as she called out to the bartender, and I could tell that she'd already had some drinks earlier in the night.
Birdy was already off the chain, and I had a feeling that the more drinks she had, the crazier this evening was going to get, and I wasn't sure if I was ready for that. I didn't want to let her know that the reason I didn't want to get drunk had nothing to do with the guys at the bar. It had to do with the guy back in the apartment, Tyler. I had a feeling that if I got too drunk, my walls would come down and Tyler and I might be doing something that we'd regret in the morning and I didn't want that to happen .
"Okay, here's your drink, girl." Birdy finally gave me a shot and then we downed them quickly. I could feel the warm liquid rolling down my throat, and I had a bad feeling that tonight I was going to get drunk.
She then handed me my margarita and I took a sip. It was strong. That was a lot of tequila, and it's going to go right to my head.
"Okay, ladies. Okay, come, come, come." The lady that was organizing the speed-dating event called everyone. “Now, you see all the tables over there? All you ladies take a seat on one side. You'll see the side you're meant to sit because there's a rose. That means there's a rose for every lady. Sorry, guys, no roses for you tonight except the women that you might make yours." She giggled and I rolled my eyes.
Birdy looked over at me and grinned. "Tonight is going to be one fun night," she said and I just nodded my head slowly. I wasn't exactly in agreement with her.
I walked over to the side of the room, and I took a seat at one of the tables in the middle. Birdy sat on the table to my left and smoothed down her dress. I did the same and waited for the lady to continue speaking.
"Okay, guys, now you can see there are 15 ladies here, and there are only 8 guys. That is a little bit of a problem because we really wanted one guy for one girl during each of these dates. Well, ha ha, mini dates are what we call them. Well, because we don't have enough guys here, some of the girls are going to have to be by themselves for a little bit. That's okay, girls, because you can write down questions that you have for the guys when they come and talk to you. And what we're going to do is... Oh, wait. Hold on. Hold on, everyone. Hold on. I'm getting a text message here. It looks like one of my coworkers has been able to find some more guys. Yay, thank you, everyone. Okay, so we're actually going to hold on for a couple of minutes, and some more guys will be coming. So we'll actually be able to do one on one dates, so it would be normal. Thank you."
She then stopped talking and walked away, and I looked over to Birdy. "Birdy, this sounds like it's going to be a hot mess. Where did they just get these new guys from?"
Birdy shrugged, "I don't know but maybe Google, Twitter, Uber. You know there are so many software engineers here in the city. They're dying for girls like us."
"I don't think they're dying for girls like us, Birdy, and I'm sure not dying for them either. I do not want to date a software engineer."
"Well, then you're living in the wrong city, girlfriend," she laughed and sat back.
I thought about her words and she was correct. I really didn't think that San Francisco was the right city for me when it came to dating. There were too many men that were software engineers and into their computers. They didn't know how to communicate. They didn't know how to dance. They didn't know how to just go out and have fun. I missed that about Florida. I missed going to the club on a Friday night and then to the beach on a Saturday. I missed going to museums and bookstores and talking about films and astrology. Just all the little things that made me tick. Guys here only wanted to talk about computers or startups or how much money they got when they sold their last IPO. That meant nothing to me.
I thought about Tyler and my brother back in Florida and how my life would be so different if I was there and hanging out with them; though I knew, as I was thinking, I was really only thinking about Tyler. What would it be like to live in the same city as him? Hang out with him on a weekly basis. Maybe go to dinners. Maybe at restaurants. Maybe at home. Maybe we'd have more of a relationship one on one.
That scared me because I could still remember the young girl that looked at him in lust and want. I can still remember the girl that fell in love with him thinking that he would be her true love. I can still remember the girl whose crush on him meant everything to her, and I didn't want to be that girl anymore. I needed to move on with my life. I needed to actually meet someone and love someone that could love me back and didn't just care about sleeping around with as many women as possible. I needed to meet a man that could marry me and have kids with me and wanted a family.
I knew from Derrick that Tyler didn't want that. He just played the field. He didn't settle down with any girl. All he seemed to want was sex, sex, and sex. And while that was good for him, that wouldn't be good for me.
I felt a hint of jealousy in me as I thought about him. Why hadn't he ever been interested in me? Why hadn't he wanted me? Why hadn't he touched me on the side of the face and looked me in the eyes and said, "Olivia, you're the one I've been dreaming about all my life. Make me the happiest man in the world. Be my girlfriend"?