September 2, 2005
Blind Leading the Blind
Jill Brooks, INtake columnist

I don’t mind blind dates but, then again, I enjoy ironing, weeding, and driving on 86th Street. Tedium is fun for me.

Being single, my friends are always looking out for me, just as I look after my single friends; but I’ve stopped setting people up because I’m a horrible matchmaker.

I set two of my friends up once and the results were disastrous. The guy asked what on earth I thought they’d like about each other. All I could come up with was, “Well, you’re a guy…she’s a girl; sorry, I thought it would work.”

Since I’m from Indy, I usually already know something about the “mystery man.” If not, yeah, I Google him.

Half the fun of a blind date is sharing the information later with your friends. My girlfriend in LA recently had a date with a guy who nervously flexed his arms and talked about “Muscle Beach” for two hours. All those dollars he spent at GNC really gave us a good chuckle.

Another girlfriend went out with a conceited (insecure) guy and knew within 14 seconds that she couldn’t stand him. They each had one beer, and when the bill came she insisted on paying for hers. Her date told her to take her twenty-dollar bill home and frame it, as a memory of her first date with him.

After she stopped puking, maybe she did just that.

Women are just as flakey. A guy friend of mine had dinner with a girl and liked her. They had a second date, a third. Dropping her off after the fourth date, he was invited in. She should have forgone the nickel tour, because when my friend saw her bedroom—a tribute to Barbie dolls everywhere—the fat lady sang.

Commonality is important. I was recently set up with a nice guy with whom I had nothing in common. He asked, “What kind of music do you like?” which is a perfectly good first-date question, and one I hate.

I explained the 8,000 songs on my laptop, noting that I fly all over the country “following” the band The Tragically Hip.

His favorite band was the Manhattan Transfer. With this tidbit, there was really no need to order an appetizer.

Thirty minutes into chatting, I mentally broke up with him. I couldn’t stop envisioning our first fight on a car trip, me throwing “The Boy from New York City” out the window.

He was probably more a “books on tape” kind of guy, anyway.