I attend a Singles Party

Hey folks, no alarm but I've done a little change to the name of this publication formerly known as Rosana's Substack even though it still very much is my Substack so yes, you are supposed to be getting this email (I hope).

This is part I of a II part essay.

It was at one of those generic city bars near St Pauls. A soulless place, the size of a football field, adorned with high white plastic chairs and white plastic roundtables with chips around the edges. The sort of place you would never intentionally frequent unless obligation or urgency demanded it in the form of a work do or a rainstorm.

We had arrived at the venue an hour before to catch up and talk tactics. There was quite a bit to catch up on after all.

After breaking up with the man she thought was the love of her life, Riona had apparently slept with her flatmate on New Year’s Eve, a 23-year old Norwegian photographer called Holger.

Previously Riona was always talking about how good a pal Holger was, and how lucky she was to finally have such a nice flatshare.

‘I just don’t know what I was thinking. What was I thinking?’ Riona asks me.

‘You were thinking it’ll be nice to have some company. That’s what you were thinking.’

The left corner of her mouth crooks up in affectionate gratitude because I am not judging her but I am judging her. Really, what was she thinking?

‘Are you ready to work the room tonight?’ I ask.

‘Oh God…it’s going to be awful, isn’t it?’

The last dating event that Riona and I attended was nearly 3 months ago, and that was exactly because 3 months was the required time span needed to restore the reserves of optimism in human kind, and also, in dating.

‘It is going to be awful indeed so we need a strategy. We need to weed through them quickly. There’s no time to waste Riona!’ I say in a mocking tone because Riona, being 6 years younger than me, has plenty of time to waste, and yet seems to be in a greater hurry than I am for the right coupling.

‘I’m definitely going home with some phone numbers tonight. I need to get Holger out of my system.’, she says.

‘I’m going to get one phone number out of tonight. That is my humble aim. Aim low to avoid disappointment, that’s my strategy,’ I say.

‘I reckon I can get three,’ Riona says whilst looking distracted at the wall as if she’s imagining what those three men will look like.

This statement of hers is very believable considering that the first time I met Riona, she was dating three men, simultaneously.

Whilst Riona and I have been having our catch up in a quiet corner of the cocktail bar, people have been streaming in, and by the time she’s finished her Gin and Tonic, and I’ve finished my Grapefruit juice, the main reception room is officially buzzing with noise.

We move from the cocktail bar to the main reception area and within a few minutes, it becomes obvious that this will be far worse than I anticipated.

There are about two hundred people crammed into what now seems like a tight spot, the music is cranked up to an unreasonable level, and the only way to initiate a conversation is in the form of a shout or an intrusive tap on the shoulder.

Not surprisingly no one is actually rotating or working the room but rather people are standing still, collecting in pockets as if it’s a political rally and things are about to go down.

Most women have clearly come armoured with friends and are taking turns scanning the room then reporting back on their disappointment of who’s shown up with smirking or scathing expressions to their friend whereas most men have congregated together in groups of five or six, and it is unclear if they are friends or have come alone then decided to huddle up together as they are silently staring out into the distance, a gang already defeated before the fight has started.

The whole charade bears a depressing resemblance to one of those night clubs I frequented in my twenties.

Ten minutes into the event, we are told to join the registration queue where we will be provided with a free drink voucher and a heart-shaped lock attached to a plastic brace.

Riona hands me her bag and excuses herself to the bathroom whilst a tall, sturdy looking actor man ushers me into the queue to explain that all the men are provided with keys to the locks and if you find a partner with the right lock and key combination, you are both entered in a draw for a free bottle of Champagne.

‘Oh God no. Are they serious?!’ I ask a few women who ignore me with a self-denying little swirl of the head.

It looks like the event organisers decided that the best way to motivate a room of heartbroken single people was to provide them with condescending props.

How can we help these people feel better about being single at a Singles Party on Valentines day? Ah yes, of course. Let’s invent a game that acts as the very representation of their mathematically speaking extremely-unlikely-to-occur quest for love.

When I reach the top of the queue, I accept the free drink voucher and say, ‘No thank you.’ when a short blonde with strong features and countless ear piercings offers me a heart-shaped lock.

‘It’s part of the registration. The lock goes around your neck.’, she says to me in a short tone.

‘Oh yeah, I just…I don’t think I need one,’ I respond gently.

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow and a set stare that says it all. It says, ‘you are pushing above your weight’.

It says you are at a Singles Party, and therefore, you are not too good to wear a heart-shaped lock around your neck but I am. I am too good to wear a heart-shaped lock around my neck.

I return her gesture by mirroring the same set look that says it all, or rather, more specifically says, ‘I would rather die alone in a 1-bed flat in Acton than wear a heart-shaped lock around my neck.’

‘You won’t be in the draw for the free Champagne,’ she adds. She’s a persistent little thing.

‘Oh, that’s okay. I don’t really like Champagne. Too gassy,’ I explain.

Her face does a disagreeable contortion that I have not seen before which makes her countless diamond studs stand out even more and makes her look, I must admit, a little bit dangerous. Oh dear, I’ve drawn out the diamond pierced beast.

‘Let me give you some advice love. I’ve done a lot of these events, and it is easier to start a conversation if you have a lock.’

She smiles at me then. Maybe she really does want to help.

‘Oh, I’m actually great at starting conversations.’, I say.

Then, to reassure her, I add in a whisper-ish voice because I don’t want to be seen as showing off in front of the other women in the queue.

‘I do a bit of comedy on the side.’

Then, a final cherry on top, I deliver a cheeky smile.

‘Alright love, then pop off the queue with ya.’, she says in her most lovable voice and smiles back to signify that, after a decent try, she is now officially done with me.

In other words, I’ve been told to fuck off in English but I could not be happier. I have gotten off lock-free.

I run into Riona at the bar and her hands are full.

Of course they are.

She’s brought me an extra lock.

‘I don’t like -’, I start.

‘I know but this way we’ve got a better chance of winning the Champagne.’

I take the heart-shaped lock and smile sourly at Riona who pretends she hasn’t noticed.

Within the first hour of the evening, a trend is established.

A man approaches Riona and tries to fit his key into her lock. Then Riona speaks to said man for a full fifteen minute interval.

When said man leaves, I ask Riona if she liked him to determine whether our fifteen minutes of shouting and getting shouted at was at least potentially worthwhile, to which Riona responds, ‘Oh no, not even a little.’

It always astounds me how incapable some women are of rejecting a man considering their obvious breath of experience in these matters.

After a few more of such incidents, I start employing the impact of the sigh which is quickly escalated to subtle statements such as:

‘So you guys have been talking for ten minutes. What’s the verdict? You want to keep talking for another ten minutes?’

And - ‘I never know with these events. Are you supposed to spend ages talking to the same person?’

Riona is too polite to tell me off beyond her long glare and an apologetic smile to her partner but on the third occasion, she finally says, ‘Perhaps you’d like to go off on your own for a while just so we can work the room a little more?’

I do so and am once again reminded of how astoundingly easy it is to have tedious, presephus-facing conversations with people who have presumably at one point or another been instructed by a partner to ‘say something interesting’ or to acquire a hobby.

Every conversation starts with the man trying to insert his key into my heart shaped lock and runs dry after occupation, place of residence and ‘reason’ for being at a Singles Party has been stated. Words are shouted across a small distance and often, I tell the men to, if possible at all, to please refrain from shouting into my ear, and as a consequence, I end up only hearing every third word they say.

I finally settle down in a pleasant conversation with Anton whose deep voice, zen-like presence and nodding capabilities are exactly what I need to offload my complaints.

‘I mean what were they thinking? Let’s get a bunch of frustrated, single people in a room together and then let’s make them feel even more frustrated by preventing them from having - oh yes - an ACTUAL CONVERSATION.’

Anton laughs and nods, and I immediately cast him in the role of new best friend.

Unfortunately our conversation is interrupted by Jakob, a man with a bowler hat, a red scarf, a checkered shirt and a very silly smile.

‘Well hello. I like your shirt. Very formal, do you work in fashion?’ he asks me.

‘Oh God no.’, I answer.

Jakob’s body swirls from left to right as he stands in front of me, and the addition of his silly smile makes him look like a court jester.

‘May I?’ he asks, gesturing at the heart-shaped lock around my neck and holding his tiny key up in front of me like a mighty sword.

‘Mmm, sure why not.’ I say.

Jakob holds my lock up and inserts his key carefully, shaking it lightly then taking it out, turning the key to the other side and repeating the same gentle thrashing.

He looks up at me and smiles reassuringly then holds the key closer to this face and starts speaking to it.

‘Come on beautiful, come on’

Who does this guy think he is? The key whisperer?

At last, he removes the key but instead of admitting defeat, he inserts the key a third time and now thrusts it back and forth with full force, the plastic brace around my neck dangling from left to right in his grip.

Jakob seems to have entered some sort of a trance. His face is red and contorted in the utmost, sombre strain of determination.

Thrush, thrush, thrush.

I can’t help but feel that something about this setup feels familiar to me but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Thrush, thrush, thrush.

Both Anton and I stand there in silence whilst watching Jakob repeatedly jamming his key into my lock.

I’m not entirely sure how but I find myself in a situation where the obvious is becoming increasingly impossible to deal with. It is impossible for Jakob to grasp and impossible for me to speak the obvious, the obvious being that Jakob doesn’t have the right key to open my lock.

For some reason, I just can’t say it.

Saying the words, ‘Hey, I think that maybe…you don’t have the right key to open my lock’ at a Singles event to a single man flailing left and right in the grasp of a heart shaped lock just seems a bit too on the nose.

Finally, Anton does it.

‘Dude, I think you’re done.’

At last. I watch Jakob’s face wake up as if from a trance, and he pulls out.

Now that it’s all over, I can see a trace of rosy-cheeked embarrassment on Jakob’s face. Perhaps he is simply a silly jester trying to make us laugh, and we’ve wrongly embarrassed him.

After delivering his line, Anton excuses himself and tells me to find him at the bar before I leave.

‘Oh, you do comedy? I sing comical songs! I’ve got a ukulele!’

Jakob speaks this line with such finality as if a secret weapon has been employed and he’s fully expecting me to faint at the word ‘ukulele’.

‘Oh wow…a ukulele. Look at that.’, I say, trying to disguise that for some reason unbeknownst to me, I’ve always been very suspicious of men who play tiny instruments.