My First Mixer, or, A Supposedly Fun Thing I May Never Do Again

Pertinent stats: I’ve gone speed dating before, which is a special sort of hell unto itself, but I’ve never actually been to a dating mixer.  I’m a quarter of a century old, let’s change that, shall we?  I invited along one of my single friends– she’s quite beautiful and more or less the polar opposite of me physically so I feel like we make a good team, we’ve got quite a few predilections covered here.  You want tall, buxom and blonde?  Check!  You want petite half-Asian beauties?  We’ve got that too!  Come chat with us!

Itinerary: Happy hour at a bar in the Mission called Slate, which allegedly turns into a dance club at some point in the evening.  I’m not emotionally ready for this to turn into a club, so let’s hope that’s not happening. I’m not really sure how one of these things go.  I’m hoping there is no sort of mandatory ice breaker, I hate having to do those for work, I am not at all interested in doing that here.

Recap and highlights

I take a lap around the bar because I’m a big vagina and my wingwoman is running late.  When I finally work up the nerve to go in, it’s hopping— there’s a DJ and a disco ball (questionable, real questionable there), and like 45 people.  Some of whom are in suits.  Whoa.  Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t quite this.

I post up at the bar because, obviously, this is where the alcohol lives.  Do an awkward eye contact thing with the guy next to me until we both decide we’re not talking to anybody else, might as well talk to each other. He reminds me of a very young Obama, definitely just out of college (cougar!) and kiiiiiinda giving off a vibe like he might be more interested in the fellas at this event, but actually, that’s just generally a hazard of dating in San Francisco.  Men are very well groomed and styled here.  I find it confusing and odd.

The stilted conversation about what we like to do in San Francisco is mercifully Old Yeller’d with the arrival of my wingwoman and the nearly simultaneous arrival of my second whiskey sour.  This bartender is clearly trying to help these guys out, I’ve never gotten so much booze-bang for my buck before. This is my second drink but might as well be my fourth, and Jesus Christ, I didn’t eat dinner again.  This night should end well.

The second prospect of the evening approaches us– he’s one of the gentlemen in a suit, tallish, Asian, glasses and I’m not super interested until he tells me that he lived in New Orleans for seven years while working as a chef.  Ding ding motherfucker DING DING those were the magic words!  I could be a dirty little slut for a well-cooked Cajun meal.

He and WW bond over semi-shared ethnic background– “It’s just so sucky because of racism,” she says at one point, SLURRRRRRP goes the whiskey sour– which leads to this exchange.

NOLA Chef: “Is your dad white?”

Wingwoman: “Yeah, he’s Italian.”

NOLA Chef: “Damn round-eyes, taking all of our women.”

Me and Wingwoman: “(Stunned silence.)”

Wingwoman: “Well, you’re going to marry an Asian girl, though, right?”

NOLA Chef (honest to God grabs my hand and kisses it): “I don’t know about that.”

EWWWW.  EWWWW.  But, eh, jambalaya, he gets my number.

Price tag: $5 cover + $6 whiskey sours, actually really reasonable drinks for SF (although technically a total loss since my cocktails ended up in the bathroom of a taqueria– fare thee well, whiskey sours, our love affair burned too brightly and too passionately to last forever).

Grade: B+

Bottom line: Probably would never go to another one of these but it was kinda fun.  If you have the confidence to ask a strange girl for her number, I’m more than likely going to give it to you– especially if you’ve lived in my favorite city.