The (Mis)adventures of Sci-Fi Speed Dating

I recently went to Comic-Con.  It was fun.  Way too many people, but that’s how it goes when around eighty thousand people, which would equal the entire population of Ogden, Utah, decides they need to go be geeks with everyone else.  There were some serious flaws with the setup and crowd control, but overall it was a good experience.  I was able to go to a number of writing panels which I hope actually do some good. 

While I was there I saw there was a Sci-Fi Speed Dating thingamajig.  Now, initially I thought to myself, “Gus, you aren’t that desperate.  Don’t do it!”  I said this out loud next to a portly gentleman dressed as...well, I don’t know what he was dressed as.  It looked like he had decided the best costume was one involving trash bags and an overdose of LA Looks Gel on his thinning hair.  Anyway, he was munching on a churro and sort of looked at me funny.  Since it was already awkward enough, I snorted loudly and huffed away as if I had somewhere important to go. 

After talking with my friends I decided I had nothing to lose.  At best, I would meet someone interesting.  At worst, I would lose two hours of my life, hours that I could never get back, unless I developed the ability to warp time.  I tried that once though, the warping time thing.  I think I passed out and broke my computer chair and destroyed a small village in the Amazon.  It’s all really hazy. 

Anyway, I decide to do it.  Now, the first clue that I should have backed out was the notice that guys had to pay money and the women didn’t.  This sort of fit the stereotype that all guy geeks and nerds are desperate to pay cash for the possibility to meet interesting women.  I was tired though, and probably needed food, so I plopped down my ten dollars to a gentleman that fit the mold of the super overweight nerd dressed in some sort of World of Warcraft outfit.  In my head he became Captain Rotund, or Mage Rotund.  Anyway, he told me to come back in two hours.  So I wandered around some more, bought some cool art, ate a protein bar and meandered back to the room and got in line. 

So there I was, in line with a bunch of other guys down a corridor in the Salt Lake Convention Center.  It was at this moment that a second clue into the waste of time I was about to partake in came into focus.  There were no air vents down this corridor.  A bunch of guys – some fat, some creepy, some skinny, and some normal – started sweating.  To top off the clue sundae, someone ripped a fart. 

Stinky, sweaty guys trapped in a corridor with no air, and now it smells like shit.  At this point I pulled out my phone and posted something along the lines of, “Either that is the smell of desperation, or someone farted.”  To be honest, in that group of guys the smell could have easily been mistaken for desperation instead of gas. 

As I gasped for air, I started to look around at my competition.  I was dressed plainly in a pair of jeans with a t-shirt that said “The Expendables,” which has the movie cast dressed in red shirts from “Star Trek.”  I actually got a lot of positive comments on the shirt.  Anyway, as I looked around I quickly began to feel sorry for some of the women, which we could not see yet.  There was the trash bag guy from earlier behind me.  He was sweating profusely, mopping his brow with the back of his hand.  In his hand was some sort of staff or wand thing, which looked absolutely ridiculous.  It looked like he took a BIC pen and taped a bunch of cardboard around it to form a triangle, and then colored it black with a Sharpie.  There was the older guy with the creepy guy mustache and gigantic glasses wearing jean shorts, long socks and a TNG (The Next Generation) captain’s jacket.  There were the skinny kids next to me dressed as Booker from Bioshock Infinite and Batman.  There was another overweight guy dressed as.. I can’t remember, but it looked hideous. 

Now, I say this with a hint of self-satisfaction, but I am happy that I have lost a great deal of weight.  Being around these other guys reminded me of why I lost all that weight.  I started to think to myself, I am perfectly normal compared to some of these guys.  I smiled and waited for Captain Rotund to let us in. 

Finally, after suffering through a few more minutes of stench and sweat we were rushed into the room.  We were directed to take our seats across a woman and pin the nametag with a number to our shirts.  As I did so it became glaringly obvious there was no way I was going to be able to speak to all of the women.  There must have been seventy-five pairs, and you were only allowed three minutes to talk to someone.

So Captain Rotund lays out the rules and reminds guys to be polite.  He makes some awful jokes not worth remembering, and then says, “Go!” 

Now, imagine you are in a room with 149 other people who immediately start saying “HI” at the same time.  It quickly became apparent that there was going to be little talking and lots of yelling. Every conversation I had involved yelling and straining to hear the other person.  It would have been funny if it wasn’t intentional. 

I started yelling at the woman next to me, who didn’t seem interested in me at all.  Dressed in jeans and simple Star Wars t-shirt, her blue eyes couldn’t be any more annoyed that I was there. Still, I figured I might as well yell at her and start the conversation.

“HI!” I screamed.  “I’M NUMBER 24!”  She screamed back at me, and we had some small yelling about the convention.  After what seemed an eternity Captain Rotund counted down and we switched chairs.

What became apparent was that some women were not there to do anything other than stare at you and not engage in questions.  I would start by screaming a question about their costumes, or what their favorite part of the Con was.  They would answer, and then not ask me a question in return.  It was so awkward.  This is also a phenomenon I’ve noticed with meeting women from dating sites.  I’m not saying all women are like this, but it’s so damn bizarre.  Even if you aren’t physically attracted to me, at least try to have a conversation, you know? 

The worst was a really big woman dressed as Ursula from The Little Mermaid.  It took me a second to remember the name, and once I figured it out I told her that as a kid I loved that movie, but as an adult I didn’t care for how Ariel was portrayed, and that in general most female princesses are nothing but stereotypes of the bimbo girl who can’t do anything or protect themselves.  This must have hit a nerve, because her purple eyes glared at me, and she crossed her arms above her rolls.  She stopped engaging me at that point and stared around me.  Realizing I hit a nerve, I stopped yelling at her and decided to wait out the awkwardness.

There was the woman dressed as Wonder Woman who couldn’t remember if Wonder Woman was a DC or Marvel comic (a normal person wouldn’t care about the difference, but to us geeks/nerds, it matters), there was the cute woman dressed as a Final Fantasy character, the woman dressed in wings and leather, another woman in a simple t-shirt with a tattoo of some sort of squid thing on her arm, the woman who had to be in her fifties, and some others.  I didn’t find a great deal of them interesting or engaging, so I jotted down their numbers and hoped that this would end quickly. 

What I found extremely annoying was Captain Rotund’s lack of an ability to count.  I swear there were times where I only screamed at a woman for a minute or two.  It eventually felt like a chore, the screaming and the yelling.  I asked a woman who was dressed as Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock what her favorite part of the Con was, and I swear I heard, “Grabbing Q’s ballsack.”  Knowing that couldn’t have been the correct answer, but not polite enough to ask her again what she really said, I just nodded politely and responded to her question about my favorite part of the Con. 

Finally, it was over.  I had yelled at about thirty women in the span of 60 minutes.  Of those thirty, I only jotted down the dating number of about five.  The low number of those I found interesting was the realization that the more attractive women most likely wouldn’t respond to me (being brutally honest here), and the rest I had no desire to ever yell at them again.  Still, I jotted down my name and number on their corresponding dating sheet at the opposite side of the room. 

It was at this point the creepiest guy there decided to show his true colors.  While the rest of us sat down and waited to be free a middle-aged guy with a Hawaiian shirt, jean shirts and long socks was writing down his number on every single woman’s dating sheet.  I didn’t think it was possible to get creepier than the guy with the Trent Lott glasses and jean shorts wearing the TNG jacket, but I was wrong.  Everyone looked over at him awkwardly, and I cringed, feeling even more sorry for the women who might have been normal. 

To top off the awkward cake, while we were waiting for the dude to finish, Captain Rotund decided to do some “impersonations.”  I quote the word because he didn’t impersonate anyone well at all.  He called himself an amateur comedian, which would have been a polite thing to call him.  Imagine if Robert DeNiro tried to do impersonations of Gollum and other famous Sci-fi characters.  It was a complete failure. 

Then it managed to get worse.  How, you ask?  Well, I will tell you.  Someone asked him to impersonate Barack Obama.  Instead of impersonating Obama, he decided to impersonate a badly informed talking head.  He began to rail on immigration, the “Kenyan” president, and the budget.  It went on for minutes, as the crowd groaned.  The levels of awkward jumped to 11 as Captain Rotund turned into Captain Asshole.  Finally someone told him the creepy guy was done, and he finally shut up.  We were told we could pick up our dating sheets and could leave. 

So I picked up my sheet.  To my lack of surprise, there were only a few numbers and names on there.  Sadly a few of the numbers were women that I didn’t find interesting or attractive, but one the Final Fantasy character put down her #.  A woman I didn’t even get a chance to yell at also jotted down her #. 

So was it worth it?  Did any positives come from the experience?  Yes and no.  It was worth it because I get to write this blog post about it.  It was worth it because it boosted my confidence.  It was worth it because it reminded me that all the weight I’ve lost separates me from those who don’t treat their bodies like the temples they should be worshipping at.  It reminded me that I am not that awkward.  It was not worth it because nothing came from any of the numbers.  The one woman who I didn’t talk to lives in L.A., and the Final Fantasy woman was 23, a little too young for me. 

Would I do it again?  I don’t know.  If I could get down to my goal weight, perhaps.  I’m not saying that it matters as much as it used to, but it certainly helps.  Given a choice between a bunch of nerds and geeks who have similar interests, a person can choose between those who are fit compared to those who aren’t. 

If I go next year I would LOVE to dress as The Joker from The Dark Knight, but that would require a purple suit.  Maybe I can find a cheap one.  At this point I would only go to get more writing material.