It's the summer slump in the office. There's not a lot to do. It's far too hot outside to do anything. So, as we were sitting in our cubicles, watching the clock tick away, my co-workers had a random idea.
Let's set each other up on blind dates.
The rules of this blind date set-up are simple. The two people going on the date don't know anything about each other besides their first name. No pictures. No bios. No nothing.
Personally, I was more along for observation compared to participation. Two girls were up to bat. Ready to jump into this sea of dating blindly. After about twenty to thirty minutes of stalking multiple mutual friend Instagram accounts, the contenders were ready. It only took a few text messages and the guys were in. But up first, was my co-worker, who will be under the pseudonym Katie.
Katie's date was set for 24 hours after this whole thing was organized. The two going on the date received each other's numbers for the purpose of only figuring out date logistics such as where should they meet, etc. The guy was responsible for planning the whole date so Katie had zero idea what she was walking into.
The date was to going to take place after work. Our other co-worker, under the pseudonym Cathy, was curling Katie's hair right before they clocked out. Katie was shaking, ready to back out of this of whole idea.
"Guys, I can't do this." She said, hunched over on the floor in nervous tension while Cathy wrapped her long locks around the curling iron. We all went through our individual pep talks to her. And soon our pep talks extended to our manager who walked over to see the action. He didn't really acknowledge the hair curling and left the girls alone to finish what they were doing before the end of the day.
Finally, Katie left our cubicle farm to enter the big-girl world of blind dating. A concept our generation rarely experiences anymore since we learn everything we need to know about a person online before meeting. It was an adventure of a date that included nervous conversations, mini golfing, getting their car stuck on a mountain (long story) and Taco Bell!
The next day at work, Katie recapped the whole thing to us. We sat in a circle, discussing every detail of Katie's date as specific as she could. While she has a great story to tell and it gave us something to do at work, what was the real greater meaning behind this whole thing? Maybe there wasn't anything at all, but today I asked Katie "What did you learn from this blind date experience? If anything at all."
"I really liked the old-fashion dating experience. While I guess it wasn't that old-fashion, it was the idea of meeting someone without actually knowing who they are online. I didn't already have an assumed opinion of him before walking in. It was clean, fun, and spontaneous. I would do it again tomorrow."