Blog post #2

The magazine informed me that I was being sent speed-dating. After the fiasco that was the wine tasting, they decided I might fare better if I got to bring some friends, so the dating agency let me bring three of the girls along for free. I was more enthusiastic about this one, because I doubted that even my cataclysmically bad dating skills would be enough to completely repel a man in 4 minutes. Also, I felt a bit more secure in the knowledge that should I bump into the kind of men that were at the last event, the whole sorry ordeal would be over after our time was up.

 The one thing about magazine journalism which is slowly attempting to coax me away from newspapers is the unbelievable amount of stuff which you're given for free. So far this has included wine, pizza, make-up, tan, cinema tickets etc etc etc. (Tomorrow night I'm being sent to review a 5 star hotel.) Not only do people give you stuff for free, they try particularly hard to woo you and make sure you have the best night ever, and end up writing a gleaming review of their fantastic dating services. Sadly, as nice as the organisers were and the amount of alcohol they tried to feed us just could not compete with the kind of men who go to this bloody speed dating events. I could tell as soon as the first one sat down, that this was going to be the longest four minutes of my life.
 “And what do you do, darling?”
“I'm a journalist.”
“Ah, that's pretty cool.... I'm spiderman.”
Of course you are, I thought. The only thing I seem to be gaining from this article so far is a worrying immunity to weirdos.
 “No, you don't understand, I'm spiderman” he said, winking.
“Ok?”
 “No, like, spider-man? Get it?! I'm spiderman!” I was starting to panic now and wondering how a period of a few minutes was beginning to feel like they were stretching to an eternity. I started nervously looking around the table and wondering if this guy had planned some sort of disturbing display where he'd shoot a web from one of his appendages.
“Like spider-man? I'm Peter Parker, you know? The guy who goes out with the beautiful journalist...” Yet more nauseating winking.
 “I think you mean Superman?”
 “Either way, I can be your hero....” And so it began. There were many “It's A Wonderful Life” moments when I anxiously waited for that blessed bell to ring and release me from the trauma of these mini-dates. One guy viciously grabbed my wrist when I was mid-sentence at leaned into my face at a proximity that I would usually only allow for dentists.
 “Listen. We both know what's going on here. I'm here, looking for the girl of my dreams. You're here, looking for the guy of your dreams. We've found each other. Let's get out of here...” I quickly blabbered that I had several more dates to go and simply couldn't leave my friends. After he'd moved on, I did remain mildly smug that clearly I was just so enthralling beautiful and charming that this man had assured himself that I was most certainly The One. That is, until afterwards when I compared notes with my friends and found that he had also proposed to the other girls and invited one to New York this weekend. And I thought I was special.

 The night did improve, though. Thanks in no small part to a guy who worked for The Irish Independent and had also been roped into this horrific experience. His friend happened to be a guy who was attempting to do 50 dates in 50 days, to find the love of his life. I pounced on that because clearly, I needed something better to fill the article than the spider-man guy. They turned out to be pretty good craic so the night wasn't a complete shambles, as the wine tasting had been.

 Just to assure you that I'm not spending all my time talking to weirdos in bars, I have been doing journalistic bits and bobs to justify staying here. I had an absolutely brilliant interview with a guy from the Irish Times called Peter Murtagh. He showed me around their newsroom and given the opportunity, I would have definitely chained myself to the desk if I could. I don't think I've ever wanted to work for a newspaper more in my life. He even introduced me to the news editor, and completely lied on my behalf, making me sound like some sort of journalistic prodigy. (I decided it was best not to mention my current project to him.) Anyway, we got on really well and he invited me for lunch. Not exactly a job offer, but it's been very important schmoozing.

 While I'm here, I've been pushing the boundaries of harassment and common courtesy in trying to convince a newspaper to take me on. I eventually managed to break down The Evening Herald and they agreed to take me on for three weeks over Easter, so no more missing class, I promise. Also, I've got a week with Broadsheet.ie here again over reading week. Story wise, I've been doing some court reporting and hanging around the Dáil. Nothing spectacularly ground breaking but the political reporter from RTÉ gave me some tips and stuff. He's lovely! I explained to Craig already that an Irish journalist has basically handed me a story which could be good, in Cardiff. It's to do with neo-nazis, and who doesn't love a good neo-nazi story? I've been researching bits and bobs for that, too. I've been keeping up with everything, I promise. I'm seeing InDesign layouts in my sleep.

 Next up for the feature, I've got two blind dates, an online dating “date”, and a terrifying experience when I have to actually go up to a real human boy and ask him on a date.