Hi, nice to meet you my name is.. NEXT!

So my new roommate moved in this past weekend. Her name is Renee and she seems pretty cool so far. Her mom flew down with her from Oregon to help her get moved in and told Renee's dad on a phone call that I'm "a nice girl, yes a very nice girl". Aww.

Well Renee was asking me about stuff to do in Mobile, and as I've briefly mentioned before.. uh I don't get out much, so I didn't really have much to tell her. I'm not what one would call a social butterfly by any means. I mean I'm perfectly capable of holding a deep intellectual conversation about any of many subjects that I'm passionate about. But when it comes to "small talk", hey, how are you, what do you do, stuff like that, I totally suck.

Renee on the other hand is, I'm beginning to think, a social butterfly extraordinaire. She actually went on MySpace and did a search for people around her age that were local here in Mobile, and messaged them! "Hey my name is Renee, I'm moving to Mobile and looking to meet people, hang out etc." Or something along those lines.

Of course she refined the search with some important criteria, not crazy, somewhat educated, breathing. (j/k) She's already got people, mostly guys I think, calling her and asking her to meet up with them. I'd die a thousand slow deaths before I had the nerve to do something like that!

So when I mention that I've lived a pretty solitary existence since I became single.. in April... of 2004 she asked if I'd ever been speed dating.

I'm sorry what?

I've never even been Slow dating. What do you mean speed dating? I mean I understand the general concept, I watch movies. You go to a restaurant or cafe, put a classy sticker on your chest that says "Hi, My Name is Mollie - I'm lonely and socially inept" and play musical tables while someone rings a bell every 3 minutes.

What the heck can you say to someone that will give you any idea if you'd get along, much less possibly be the man of your dreams, future husband and father of your children, in 3 minutes?!

Maybe it's because I just can't seem to do the "small talk" thing. I grew up playing sports and hanging out with guys as one of the guys. So conversations with new guys for me go something like, "Dude did you catch that Pistons game?, Ben Wallace is the sh*t!". And that's only after someone, usually a guy, that I already know has initiated the conversation and I just chime in now and then.

But Renee has decided to take it upon her self, take me under her wing, and thrust me head first, stumbling, feet dragging and clutching on for dear life to the arm of the sofa, into society via speed dating.

I don't know if Mobile even has speed dating anywhere, but lucky me, she works at USA, so if there's someone who knows someone who knows someone, who's been to or heard of where there may be a speed dating event, that's the place to find them. Yay.

I'm thrilled. No really I am. I'm not kidding. Ok maybe I am just a little. Not about her dragging me to a speed dating thing, rather about how much I'm looking forward to it. cringe

Who knows, the first guy I see may be so charmingly handsome and approachable that I can skip going to the next table, or the next 13 after that. Of course that would mean he'd have to find me as equally charming and handsome, err cute and offer to continue chatting for that to work. Here's Hoping!!