#4: The Foundation
They walked into the room in a line, parading past us. Seventeen women, all young (or at least young-ish) and dressed to impress, doing their best to stand out among her peers to one of the eight of us men. Each of us sat by ourselves at a small bistro table, each carefully not looking at one another as we surveyed the lovely ladies walking past. The parade ended at the front of the ballroom where
they stood in a line and stepped forward to and introduce themselves one by one.
"Hi, my name is Jennifer. I'm 22, 5-7 and 113 pounds, 38-23-36, and I love to travel."
"Hi, my name is Sasha..." each girl, as instructed, announced her name (first names only at this event), age, vital statistics, and one fast fact about her herself. Of course we knew all their names already, as they were neatly pre-printed on the selection sheet left at our tables. For now, all we needed to do was check which girls (up to three) that we definitely wanted to meet and up to one we absolutely didn't want to meet in the speed dating round that was to follow. In the next two hours each of us would meet 12 girls for eight minutes each, with two minutes to change stations in-between. But this was not your ordinary meet-and-greet. No, this was a meeting for women interested in becoming mistresses to meet prospective sponsors, each of which had to prove they had liquid assets of at least one million dollars to take part. Only in New York.
No sooner had the last one introduced herself that the girls waved as one and headed back to the adjoining room while our hostesses collected our preference sheets. They were quickly scanned into a computer set off to the side. I chose three; Jennifer, and the two redheads in the group. Since red hair is unknown on my own planet, I consider redheads a definite treat when I can get my, uh, hands on one. One was kind of short and a little pixie-ish, very cute, name of Maura. The other was average height, slender, and stunningly beautiful. Her name was Amy.
I had to hand it to them, the people staging this event were organized. Within ten minutes, we were having our first "date." Just my bad luck—Amy was first up. She was even more gorgeous up close. Her hair was dark red, straight, falling about three inches past the shoulder. She wore a green jewel-tone cocktail dress that brought out the color in her hair and pumps to match. The skirt was short; she crossed her legs as she sat at the table, and they were lovely and shapely in ultra-sheer hose. But what I couldn't take my eyes off were the fine, delicate freckles that ran down her neck. Her dress had spaghetti straps and a low neckline; the freckles continued down as far as I could see. I kept imagining how much further the freckles went, which made me even more tongue-tied when it was my time to talk.
I had never done anything like this before and wasn't sure what to expect, and so I bumbled through my first attempt with the girl I most wanted to impress. We each got to ask a question in turn; I stumbled out of the blocks by asking about her family, which she really didn't want to tell me much about. Then she asked me what I did for a living. "I...have a family fortune," I answered. I'd not thought about what kind of questions I would be asked...I sounded like a leech, living off my family and doing nothing productive. Worse, it meant I might be cut off--if I had no secure cash flow of my own, she had no secure sponsor. I bumbled through my eight minutes with her. Her polite tone when she shook hands at the first bell to change told me that she'd written me off. I was dejected that I'd blown my chance with the girl I most wanted to meet.
To compound things, they sent me Maura and Jennifer right after, bang bang. It wasn't until the second hour, when I was getting randomly drawn girls, that I started to get the hang of it. I realized I should be asking about what their requirements and expectations were, not about their personal lives. And when they asked what I did for a living, I just said "I'm independently wealthy." By the time I shook hands with the last girl, I was coming across as suave and in charge, like usually I do if I may say so myself.
"Now, since there are eight of you here tonight, please rank the top eight girls that you would like to meet again in the private session, from one to eight. The girls have been asked to do the same. We will then match you with your most compatible match. For instance, if you rank a girl first and she ranks you last, that probably won't be a good match in the long run. If you rank a girl second and she ranks you first, on the other hand, that would be a better match. Now, if you gentlemen would like to move to the private dating room, your personally matched partner will be with you shortly."
We were shown to a dimly lit room. There were eight love seats, arranged in four pairs back-to-back looking out from the center of the room. Privacy screens were placed between the backs of each pair and on either side of each sofa, creating semi private areas that, being three sided, seemed more like stalls than anything else. Each of us was shown to our own sofa; on each sofa was a rose we were to give our match when she appeared. As long as you remained seated, the desired effect of not being able to see the other men was achieved.
We spent a few anxious minutes while the pairings were set. Then all of the lights were turned out, turning the room pitch black, pierced only by the floor-pointed flashlights of the staff as they guided the selected to the stall where their match was waiting. I sat there, crossing my fingers that somehow, in spite of my awkwardness, I'd be paired with my first choice, Amy. I wasn't.
When the lights were turned back on and we saw our match, I had drawn Shelly, who I think had been my fifth choice. When the lights came on, a momentary look on her face told me that I hadn't been too high on her sheet either. But she quickly regained her composure; she had been selected, and more than half of the girls had not. Somehow, the earthling adage "beggars can't be choosers" seemed especially apropos given the context of this meeting.
