super awesome single people

This is first image that comes up in Google when you type in "sad single people."

Thursday night while sitting on her couch in a food coma and distracted by 30 Rock, Maura convinced me to go to "a singles event." Now, what is a singles event, you might ask? Well, join me on this journey and you will find out.

Friday night I met some lady friends at the Slaughtered Lamb where we had a pre-singles event beer to calm our nerves and get the collective "are we really going to do this?" out of our systems. From there we mosied on over to Alibi in the West or Greenwich village (I still don't know the difference, I don't think I'll ever know the difference) for the "event." Walking in, the bar was empty and we were informed by the bartender that the other sad, single people were in the back room. There was a tinge of judgement in her voice, mixed with a look that said "I'm sorry you're so lonely that you're subjecting yourself to this."

Undeterred, we walked into the small, cavernous back room where we were met by Mike, our "leader" for this mingle and about 6 other sad, single people. Mike greeted us warmly, invited us to have a seat and started the introductions. Sandra, Mike, some guy from Queens who had a wedding ring on, an lady wearing scarves, Matthew, another women who looked angry and Adam all greeted us. I took my seat next to Adam and after a few minutes of exchanging pleasantries, I had learned he was an engineer, lived in Hoboken, went to Wash U, refused to give money to Wash U, liked to drop F-bombs, had a brother who went to Harvard, didn't like that his brother gave money to Harvard, hated St. Patricks Day but still wished he was Irish and was on the Autistic spectrum. He didn't divulge the Autistic part but I'm pretty keen on picking it up in strangers.

At this point, having added nothing to the conversation, I excused myself to go into the bathroom and twitter and text and check my email. I also used this time to figure out how we were going to escape.

Eventually, I returned and after another ten minutes of pleasantries and contemplating how a life of singledom really does not seem so bad by comparison, we gathered by the door plotting our exit. Quickly we gathered our coats in our hand and as we turned to leave I heard, "So, you're fucking leaving?" Slowly, we turned around to see Adam standing behind us wide-eyed and with a curious look on his face. We awkwardly explained that we had other plans and just stopped by for a drink. Then, something strange happened. One by one, Adam held out his hand to shake ours goodbye. Starting with Kate, as soon as his hands clasped hers, he awkwardly lunged forward as if to kiss her on the mouth. Startled, she leapt back. He did the same thing to Maura and by the time he got to me, I had locked my elbow and raised my left hand to block him in case he lunged at me, too. He did and the resulting move was a mixture of a bear hug and an arm wrestle during which I just kept saying, "Alright, buddy, take care."

Eventually, we escaped and walked outside into the fresh air of freedom. After a few moments of shaking our heads and giggling, we gained our composure and began our walk to a nearby piano bar. It was then the Maura realized she had left her umbrella inside. After of contemplating whether or not she should just leave it or risk another awkward Adam encounter, she decided to go back into retrieve it. As I watched her walk in I just kept thinking "I'm so glad I'm not her right now."