"reckless abandon" and "blind date" do not go together like peanut butter and chocolate

A friend of mine sent me the beta of a frightening new dating service. If you live in Austin, Boston, NYC or San Francisco and you tell them what part of the city you'll be in and when, crazy blind date will set you up with a complete stranger for a drink or coffee.

Apparently all you get is a location and your date's name and short description. No real deets, no photos. The website bills this as dating "with reckless abandon."

What kills me is that my friend doesn't just think this is "really cool," but actually thinks that we should do a crazy blind date double-date. Has this friend never met me?

I've been on two blind dates in my life, both because I just couldn't find a way to decline. One of the dates was passable; the second was one of the worst nights I've ever spent with another human being. My date, who I had been told was "the sweetest guy ever," actually spent a good chunk of dinner recounting the details of his daily exercise routine. When he got to Tuesday and how many sit-ups he did before the push-ups and why that was different from the number and order on Monday, I abandoned all pretense of civility. I figured that smoking while eating would a huge turn-off to a work-out junkie, so I purchased cigarettes. Unfortunately, he thought this was rebelliously attractive. Then my date actually finished his story and decided to ask me about my life. This scintillating new line of conversation began with: "So, do you like to have fun?"

I found out later that he was actually my boss (who I despised) at the time's regular booty call. Icky.

RainyBow