Jenny Aluning
Well, I’ve been screwed….twice!! But before you start thinking: “What the hell??” let me explain.
My best friend and I recently decided to get ourselves out there and start meeting men outside our usual sphere. Since we’re both single, it’s pretty obvious that the old way of doing things was sooo not working. So, we signed up with a company called: Fast Impressions. Our first event was a speed dating event held at the Table Bar in Sydney, near Martin Place. It was a marathon of 25 men, 3 minutes each. I was exhausted! But it was a surprisingly pleasant evening. While there were no matches for me there (they were all older men and I’m still a bit of a kid at heart), at least it didn’t turn me off trying again.
So back to being ‘screwed’. Our next event was a singles party at the Bligh Hotel last Friday night called: ‘Nuts and Bolts’. On arrival, a girl gets a nut and the boys, a bolt. So during the evening, it is your mission to find the match for your nut. Well…I found my match, twice!! When you get a match, they give you a new nut and it just happened that I found my ‘bolts’! Hehe! One of them was an older man that I had, wait for it…met at the speed dating thing at the Table Bar! And the other was a cute half-Filipino boy who worked for the Department of Defense.
Now, I had never been the kind of girl that can just talk to guys out of the blue. Until recently, I have never had that confidence, so to find myself just mingling, wearing a sexy dress and having fun that night was a wonderful revelation. While approaching complete strangers and asking to match their ‘nut’ or ‘bolt’ can seem to be an artificial way of meeting people, it can also be a liberating one. For once, you don’t have to think of a cheesy opening line to start a conversation with someone!
As the night drew to a close, it was clear that some people seemed to have found their ‘matches’ with many a phone number being exchanged or couples leaving the bar to continue their night somewhere else. While my best friend and I didn’t find ours, I at least, am left with the enthusiasm and the hope to look forward to the next time.
Jason Harris
