In the hope that they could find me my someone I was invited to attend an event hosted by mysinglefriend.com at Love Die Late - a lovely space for consuming coffee and cocktails in central London. I am a regular consumer of both but needless to say at a singles event I opted in for the former and on said evening I learnt a couple of lessons as a new singleton. Number 1. Don't tell singles of the opposite sex I am a dating blogger. Number 2. Being modest when chatting to those in investment banking as a single will get you nowhere - they are just as cut throat with dating as they are with their entities.
The venue was just as fun as the team at MSF hosting it. Upon arrival we had to choose an envelope- either truth or dare. Feeling rebellious, I of course, opted in for dare and had a lot of fun - I even sneakily had a read of other singles cards just to see what kind of night I was in for! I schmoozed the room of singletons, even with what could be deemed as a daunting prospect of Channel 5 filming the occasion, dating photographer Saskia Nelson snapping all the couples chatting away and OK! Magazine being present.
As far as singles events go, and I have both been to and hosted my fair share, this was a particularly good looking crowd with a larger amount of single professional men than women but how can that be a bad thing as a single lady? Well at least I thought so, but I did overhear one lady in particular airing her views about it - perhaps she should have chosen a coffee over a cocktail to realise the odds were definitely in her favour. It doesn't take a genius.
So channel 5 invited me to chat with a chap on camera to talk about what we were both doing there and I have to tell you that he had the strongest Irish accent and was particularly loving his 30 seconds of fame, which was really interesting to watch. I managed to get a couple of words in edgeways but this didn't go down too well. Just a hint for you, if you ever think you mishear someone saying 3nder instead of Tinder, double check if in doubt before you enter into the next sentence because things can get very, very awkward. A few sips of a cocktail and glances upwards later, the bell rang and we had to move on. Phew - my saving grace at this moment.
Another pointer for you and learning curve for me. When you sneak off to have a girly gossip in the loos ( as women do ) you should always check at a singles event, or in any instance, if the bathroom is unisex - epic fail on my behalf. One must live and learn but I certainly survived to tell the tale. Exiting the bathroom at the same time as a single male who couldn't help but blush at our conversation; we all giggled and continued on the search for that someone.
There is something I would like to note and it really is something that particularly gets my goat about single men at singles events, not that I am trying to point fingers here. It is not like going to the gym, where the majority of the battle is motivating yourself to get there, if you land yourself at a singles event and stand on the sidelines chances are you will leave just as single as the moment you arrived. I am not suggesting we re-invent the wheel here but a sprinkle of forthrightness couldn't harm, right?
Having had lots of fun, a few cocktails and no sign of love being on my horizons on this particular occasion, I caught my very own single friend in the midst of chatting to a guy. With my thoughts heading towards needing a Thai green curry after a few hours of working the room and no sign of them making the move, I entered into my meddling matchmaking ways, told them to wrap it up and get their phones out for organising their first date. Job done.
Still single but who knows what will happen for my single friend.