The format of the 'date' tonight sounds kinda interesting to me. Not as much pressure as a one on one, yet not as overwhelming as speed dating.Exactly what I thought. Speed dating was horrible for me. Physically, difficult, as it was the guys who had to get up and change tables every 5 minutes. And 1-on-1 with a stranger has great potential for an awkward dinner.
That said, tonight was meh. Of the 6, 2 didn't show (one gal, one guy) and one gal was an hour late. However, the reservation was written down for 7, and we were told 8. So the restaurant released the table. We didn't get a table until 9. Conversation was varied. Sometimes awkward quiet, sometimes pretty good. The biggest discussions were Lance Armstrong, and guns in America (and schools), which was based on question to the HS school teacher. Surprisingly, all of us were gun owners or gun range for fun people.
That said, no connections. The ladies were not my type, in either sense. Nice. But nothing close to a spark.
Interesting was the discussions on the company. They all have been doing this for a while. I was the only newbie. There was a lot of discussion of "before the economy went bad, they would host..." and describe the various types of mixer events. Sounds like they used to have 2 women running the LA/OC region. Now it's just one, and she is based out of SF. Which might explain why we all lived in LA county, and she booked us a dinner in OC. Two of us were from my area. We could have carpooled! Ha. So, we all had a long drive home. Strange.