Silent Single Mingle

The New Jersey Young Professionals held their "Silent Single Mingle" last night. The rules were cell phones off, keep whispering to a minimum, and passing notes is strongly encouraged. I'd been looking forward to this one for a while, since most of my NJYP events tend to be pretty silent anyway, the silent single mingle seemed tailor-made for me. And let me just tell you, it was freaking awesome! The first half-hour or forty-five minutes, especially...

I got there right at the beginning, cause I tend to do better at these social things when no one's around. People — guys — trickled in, and what happened couldn't have gone better if it was planned. Each of us walks in, takes a pad and pen from the table in the middle of the room, gets a drink (we scribble down our orders for the bartender), and takes it to a seat around the perimeter. And we sit there. Perfectly evenly spaced out, each by ourselves and no one moves for at least fifteen minutes. It's super-awkward, but I can't help from giggling: for once, the other party people are doing the same thing I am!

The good times didn't last. Girls showed up eventually, and twenty-something guys in the room coalesced around the six girls, and it wasn't silent anymore. Low point of the night: some bland douchebag Mike takes a break from chatting up a girl, who clearly has lousy taste, and turns to me, "Having fun?"

"Sure," I said with uncommon enthusiasm, the joy of the earlier sitting around like a lump not completely worn off yet.

"Hey, you're not supposed to speak," Mike chastens me.

Oh God, Mike, that was fucking hilarious! I bet you spent all night thinking that shit up! I left after that.