cuz it's ladies nite

Last weekend I went to what I ended up calling a "singles mixer" at a bar, the Dakota Roadhouse to be exact. The brilliant premise was this: surely great single women know great single men who for one reason or another they don't want to go out with, and the single guys they know should meet the single girls they know and maybe somewhere in there there'll be a love connection. Brilliant, right? Actually isn't this the premise behind Friendster? And how successful have you been in dating from Friendster? I believe so strongly in this idea. Why does it never work?

The rule for this evening was that every woman had to bring a guy, what I came to call an "un-date." It felt really weird to ask anyone for this un-date because it's like asking someone on a date but at the same time telling him you don't want to have a date with him. To my relief, both of the guys I asked seemed flattered and intrigued. But only one was available, since the event was on a, no pressure, Saturday night. The brave and daring organizers said there would be pool and foosball and no high-pressure situations. We were so curious: how bizarre was it going to be? What would happen?

Somehow since my female links to this event were in publishing, I had expectations for the crowd that turned out to be wildly inaccurate. I sort of thought the guys would be tweedy editors or chic art directors. But no one brought her coworkers. Everyone brought her financial advisor or something. You may know them as the pleated pants loafers guys from Hoboken. I think the crux of my problem with them was the lack of any personal style. Even the girls had put on uniforms of some kind. It was like being at University of Michigan. I guess I'm just a die-hard bohemian is all. Is there a singles night for them? On the other side of the coin, extremely indie rock guys tend to drive me wild with lack of desire. I mean on both sides there's this conformity that gets so stifling. "Yeah I'm just comfortable in this hoodie and gas station pants, they really just say 'me,' you know?"

It's scary to go outside of conforming. It can be really painful to put yourself out there and be rejected. And that's what happened to me on Saturday. I tried to dress up, but I wasn't wearing Seven jeans and heels and a push-up bra, which seems to cause people to be all "what *is* that? Is that a girl or a guy? Does not compute!" No but seriously. I felt a bit off in my orange dress. So for a while I was wallflowering it with my un-date and my girl friends, and then the hostess asked me to play doubles pool with her and two guys. As you may remember from last year's office party, I am good at pool. Not like Ryan on The O.C. good, but fairly competent. This seemed to make my male partner upset. After winning two games with me he asked some other girl to be his partner and when I asked him what happened he said "oh I thought you didn't want to play again." Whatever dude. I hate you anyway. Then this other guy comes up and I guess he was trying to flirt because he's all "Ooh nice SCRATCH!" and I said hah hah, but did you see all the ones I got in? "Naw I only saw you SCRATCH!" Repeat 2x.

I'm the first to admit that I'm hypersensitive but the evening left me so demoralized. Those guys seemed so bothered by my mad pool skillz. And no one laughed at my Lucille Ball antics either. So I'm supposed to "tone it down"? I thought you were supposed to "be yourself." I feel like I'm a pretty cool lady >sniff!< but guys just aren't into me. I just read "He's Just Not That Into You" and the whole time I was like "yeah, no shit, I never thought anyone was." Whine whine whine pity me...