Singles Party !

This past Saturday, I went attended a singles party run by SpeedDater Events in Piccadilly, Central London with two of my girls.

My expectations for the evening - very low. I hadn't even checked out the profiles of the guys that were due to attend online because I was saving up my disappointment. Hhaving said that though, I was really rather excited about going out, looking hot and testing out my best chat-up lines.

I chose to wear a cute aqua knee-length jumper dress with a plunging neckline and black ankle boots. After I put on the dress I attempted to conceal my clevage a tad by accessorising with a silver necklace and bracelet combo. My hair was looking fierce in an afro puff. I headed out just after 7pm to catch the tube into town still knackered from my afternoon's dance class and with only a Tesco spaghetti and meatballs microwave meal for sustinence and a quick shot of Morgans spiced rum for dutch (or should that be Caribbean?) courage.

So I arrived at the club where the party was taking place, Orchid, which was a fabulous location and just the right size for the 150-odd daters due at the event. After putting my coat in the cloakroom and registering I was presented with a small padlock on a chain. I had not actually realised that it was a lock and key party so I quickly had to face facts that no matter how blinging my necklace was it was not gong to disguise my cleavage which had now consumed my padlock as well.

The girls and I headed straight for the bar but struggled to make it to the actual bar for over 20 minutes because guys kept sticking thier keys in our locks (sounds so cheesy) and making polite conversation. When we finally regrouped with spirits and mixers in hand we discussed that it tookm some getting used to that all the men were single and available and that there were some good-looking guys there. Ratio-wise there were a couple of other black women apart fom us and a handful of black guys.

Mingling was not a problem, at all. There was a Ghanian doctor who must have been in his mid to late 40s who decided that he didn't need to talk to any other women in the place because we were the three black girls that he wanted to talk to. Shame about the breath, that was not cute.

We signed up for speed dating but my girls were veterans but I was a novice. The thing about speed dating is that I had pretty much the exact same conversation 15 times. Name, job, where you live in London, nearest tube station (for real), hobbies, who you came to the party with etc etc. Some guys just used their 3 minutes to complain about the event, which was in no way endearing. Of the 15, there were 3 guys that I quite liked. They were all white professionals living in the city, a lot of the others were very sweet but I felt no potential chemistry. I will fill in my preferences later this week on the website and see if there are any potential matches.

After a refreshing JD and lemonade, it was time for salsa dancing. I love, love, love to dance but haven't done slas for about 10 years so I was looking forward to it. I got chatting to a black Senegalese guy outside who was really into salsa and was quite attractive. He ticks a lot of boxes on my checklist : I have a big thing for French-speaking guys, so I was looking forward to dancing with him.

The dance teachers were from Salsa Flava and they were aewsome. They taught us the basic back, front, side, and spin movements and the women had to swicth partners every 5 minutes or so. Guess who was in our group, the doctor. The teacher put me with him at first and he hugged me so tight and breathed over me - I was not amused and just wanted the 5 minutes to elapse as quickly as possible. I got to dance with the Senegalese guys who was quite good, but needs to leasd a bit more. Some guys that refused to listen to the teachers instructions and did their own thing indicate that that is the way that they will behave in a relationship. It was a really good activity that I will do gain to meet and mix with single guys so I will have to attend Salsa Flava's wekly class at Digress City in East London one Tuesday evening soon.

After the class I continued chatting with The Senegalese guy who was really fun and bubbly and we had a bit of a boogie with on the dance floor. We exchanged numbers and talked about going to a salsa club on the following weekend. My girls and I decided to leave in order to catch the last tubes home.

The next day I woke up hangover- free but still smiling about having met a guy that likes dancing as much as me. I went out to run some errands and found that I had a missed call and message from him on my phone. At least I thought it was him, beause it sounded like a mix between Ja-Rule and Westwood giving it all "yeah baby". I guess he was still drunk from the night before. I watched the previous night's X-Factor online and he called sure enough still giving it the "yeah baby" stuff. How depressing. I told him to firstly call me my actual name and secondly to just be himself. ( I feared that he was putting on the gangsta talk because he said that he had never ever dated a black woman before). Sure enough he just kept on calling me baby, which I found so incredibly disrespectful. So I ended the call with a "I'll call you", which actually means "I will never call you or answer your calls, thank goodness for voicemail".

Typical, what a waste of optimism and my aqua dress.