I’m scared!  No, seriously!!!

I’m really really a-scared to go to another Meetup. After my first.

Well, maybe I overstated that a bit. Let me put it this way, it’s been 3 months since the first and I still can’t bring myself to sign up for a second.

My girlfriend, she’s not scared.  She’s already decided. “Not for me!”

The sole purpose for our first? To Meet Men.

Definition

“Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.”

Well, that was a fancy definition.  Let me unspin this.

The meetup is to meet people and do things. Doing things are scheduled. People join up to do things. And, hopefully, the people actually attend to do the things. Sometimes they do not.

In Los Angeles, there is no shortage of Meetups.

Beach Bicycling

Full Moon Hiking

Happy Hours with woman

Happy Hours with men

Speed dating for seniors

Speed dating for juniors

Art Galleries

Jazz on Fridays

Jazz on Sundays

Jazz on Tuesdays

20s and 30s groups

40s and 50s groups

Snuggle groups

Cuddle groups

Drawing groups

Painting groups

Writing groups

Kinky groups

Polyamorous Sex Positive groups, which – trivial fact – currently has 1,504 members. I looked it up.

The idea is that there’s something for everybody and, hopefully, everybody for somebody.

Two of us single ladies, Me and Girlfriend #1, were fed-up with no dates coming out of the substandard “Hi’s” “How are you’s” “What’s going on’s?” not to mention the plenty of dick-pics floating around out there in the online dating world. So we decided that maybe a Meetup would be the better bet to meet men. Well, this, actually, was my bright idea, and it took more than just a little coaxing plus a couple glasses of wine to convince Girlfriend #1 to promise to go with me.

Once we got used to the idea, we started imagining the advantages. Guys would be held hostage in no bigger than a 900 square foot room, and by the time they’re on their second glass of wine, they’d be mesmerized and captivated by our exquisite beauty, alluring charms and ample boobs. Or maybe just the ample boobs. I don’t know. Regardless, they’d be forced to have the full 3-D experience of us; the only 2-D options being the paintings on the walls and the pictures of our darling children displayed on our mobile-devices as we proudly scroll through ages 5 through 26.

On second thought, maybe we forget about the kids. Just for one night. We’ll play that one by ear.

On a side note, we could pretty much be guaranteed that these men would not be whippin’ out their 3-D’d dicks while armed with their picture-devices zooming in on just a little bit less than almost everything right below their waist. At least not in front of us. Well, out in public, anyway.

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So I begin to search for meetups and skim through photos and bios of the types of people who are going to each event. I find men going to these events.

Hiking events

Art Gallery events

Biking events

Happy Hour events

Jazz events

And Polyamorous Sex Positive events.  Out of 1,504 in the group, 120 will be going.

But we don’t pick that one.

We pick…

The Art Gallery!!!

Before we even sign up, our shared imaginations are already running wild; reminiscing about the tall, sophisticated and well-traveled older man who falls for Girlfriend #1 and the tall, sophisticated, well-traveled younger man who hooks up with Me. They are gorgeous. They can hold a conversation. They adore us. They are gentleman. Mine has tattoos. Hers wears a tux.

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The night of the event I meet at Girlfriend #1’s house.  As luck would have it, the art gallery is no further than one-half mile from her home, and after deciding on her bait-hook attire for the night, we walk that half mile.

We talk strategy. Girlfriend #1 is a little shy and coy but has mastered the head-tilt, the eye-lock and the coy smile that seems to engage the guys. A good flirt. I, on the other hand, blurt out inappropriates or half sentences or mis-use of words, joking and “hey buddy”-ing men like I’m some kind of female version of Don Rickles on steroids. Well, not that bad. Maybe a third that bad. Bottom line: I suck at flirting.  So, we seem to think these two approaches may work for us. I open up the conversation. She reels them in.

We’re a little late. 7 minutes, maybe. If that. Our imaginations did, in fact, have us for realz at that 900 square foot space. We see from down the way that the place is packed and people are spilling out onto the street, and as we walk up, we see that the artist has already started his presentation.

This makes us both scared. We thought we could just slip in – incognito at this point. But it seems we can’t, and we’re in no mood to make a splashy entrance…our stomachs are already churning. Should we go back?

Then…

… look, WINE!!!

We try to sneak in, but we hardly get ourselves through the door when I notice all eyes casting, what feels like, curses upon us as we make our way through the middle of the standing-only crowd. We need that wine! We can’t disrupt the room any more than we already have, so I pick out four tall people and blend into their crowd. Girlfriend #1 takes my lead. After a handful of minutes and all eyes are back on the presenter, we slither on back to the wine table. Red for her. White for me. And before even taking one sip of the wine, we both relax.

Following the artist’s presentation, Girlfriend #1 is the first to spot Her Type. He’s an older and very handsome man, standing solo. By the time she whispers in my ear that she wants to move a little closer to this man, I, too, have spotted him and am already thinking they would stand well together. So I’m up for the meet and greet. However, no sooner than she puts her request into my ear, he walks over to stand in front of the painting that’s hanging before us. He says something to her that I can’t quite make out, and I notice her head-tilt, eye-lock and coy smile and before you know it, I’m moving a little closer to them doing my best to eavesdrop on a nice back and forth conversation.

But not more than 6 minutes later, he just leaves.  She’s stunned. “What? What did I do?”

I explain to her.

Gay!

She’s disappointed. We stay put and change our focus to that painting. While discussing the typical “This one is interesting” “What do you see in it?”and the “I wonder what the artist was thinking?” within a few minutes, out of my peripheral I catch…uh…maybe My Type?

But then…

Suddenly, from behind us, runs up a fit, blond, well-dressed, good lookin’ fellow with his (girlfriend?) in tow.

To me he says, “Darling, YOU are the only one in this room we want to meet. You are fabulous!”

Ugh! Cock-blocked by…

Gay!

“As soon as you walked through that door, we could see you had a great energy about you! Your aura filled the room. “(was it black? ’cause when I walked in, I felt like I was going to either puke or pee depending on which end of me was closest to the floor)

I thank him politely and he introduces his woman friend. Now don’t get me wrong. I love gay men. They are hands down the most fun to spend time with. But I have an agenda and only a short time in which to breed success, and I’ve already spent up all my it-takes-guts coming to this thing. My agenda, this time, does not include meeting a man where there will be no chance in hell of getting his man-pistol into my peeper.

Still, overly excited to meet me like I’m Princess Diana back from the dead, he keeps talking louder and louder, his enthusiasm growing. Girlfriend #1 is quiet. And, while I’m trying to be courteous, I keep rudely glancing past each of his shoulders to see if My Type is still there.

My new boyfriend holds me hostage, though. So I finally give in to discussing the perils of online dating, his prior relationships, what he does for a living and his wonderful art. Girlfriend #1 escapes his coup and is already heading over to the wine table for our refills before the online dating part of the conversation is half way through.

While my new boyfriend either pauses to take a breath or check out some other dude, I do a quick scan over the room and notice that the 900 square foot room is lookin’ a little bigger – it seems half the people have emptied out and another quarter are hangin’ at the wine table. Where’s My Type?

By the time I bring my attention back to my new boyfriend, he’s looking me over and sizing me up.

“All this,” he says swishing his hands up and down through the air from the top of my neck to my bottom, “looks fabulous. But your face? You have a pretty face and you need to flaunt it. More makeup. Different hairstyle.”  And as I brush his hand away from fixing my hair, he takes my hands and blurts out, “And for God’s sake! Quit biting your fingernails.”

By now praying that my new boyfriend will tone it down a tad, Girlfriend #1 walks up with only one glass of white wine and is bewildered at what is transpiring within the airspace just north of my neck. She hands me the wine. Relieved that she’s interrupting my makeover, I ask her, “where’s your wine?” Bashfully, she whispers to me that someone knocked her into the table, red wine spilled everywhere, and she scooted out of there so fast that a cheetah couldn’t catch her. Her face is beet-red, and I’m sure she is thinking: No Man. No wine. Let’s go!

But before she has a chance to say what I think she’s thinking, my new boyfriend puts his attention on her. Feeling badly that she just may be wishing for a makeover too, he pulls the same crap. “You have a pretty face too…you need more makeup, false eyelashes, thank god you have long nails…” After she puts him in his place half-politely yet with an iron fist, he takes offense and storms out of there like a 2 year old wearing combat boots on speed.

As my new boyfriend storms off, I see My Type standing there. Whew! I convince Girlfriend #1 not to leave – just yet. He’s over there talking with the artist. I wanna give it a shot. I don’t want to pull out my best Don Rickles, but I can’t quite figure out another way to approach him just yet. And as we get closer, I notice My Type – with the tilt of his head, the look in the eyes, and the coy smile as he talks to Him, the Artist…

Gay!

Feeling exhausted with disappointment, we hightail it out of there and head straight over to the wine bar across the street. We take a seat at the bar, order our wine, and, momentarily, our hopes are raised because…

Two men walk into the bar.

Sit down beside us.

Order their wine.

But then we realize…

Gay!

Ciao for now,

k