Three-minute men

By: CADE GRUNST

Posted: 2/15/08

In response to a recent reader e-mail describing my column as sounding "lovelorn," this week I decided to do something a trifle different. So, after dragging myself out of my bottomless melancholic well of loneliness and despair, I grabbed a couple buddies and went speed dating.
Guided more by an extreme overabundance of pink than any innate sense of direction, we gradually found our way to MU II. There we were greeted by a minor swarm of giggling Latino girls, much to my confusion. You see, in much the same way I couldn't detect that a close friend of mine was gay despite his wide-screen-super-deluxe-special-director's-edition of "Hairspray," it hadn't occurred to me that an event hosted by a group called "Mujeres Ayudando la Raza" might perhaps have predominantly Latin American participants.
We sat down, waiting as more people gradually shuffled in. To avoid our growing racial self-awareness, we passed the time composing various blatant lies with which to amuse ourselves for three minutes at a time. Soon I was Giacomo, a Physics-English-Anthropology-Communications quadruple major accompanied by his twin brothers William H. Macy and Darth Maul. We ultimately decided that honesty might be the best policy, after I realized that it might be a mite difficult to introduce myself as Giacomo when my name badge so clearly read "CADE" in my signature scrawl.
The way the evening worked was pretty simple. The emcee gave us an icebreaker question and three minutes with which to humiliate ourselves, then the dudes stood, shifted left and started over. The upside of three-minute-dating is that if you show up armed with a repertoire of only a single joke, you could tell it all night and it would still be fresh. The downside is that by the time you've told it, she's laughing but you're already moving on. My roommate was a natural at this. Drawing from long years' experience with lasting only three minutes, he spent the entire night dodging uncomfortable silences by asking everyone whether or not a wrapped sandwich that fell in the garbage was still fair game. It had been an extremely pertinent issue about a half-hour earlier (answer: yes!).
I survived the evening relying upon the standard name-year-major barrage, which after a while seemed eerily similar to the armed forces' name-rank-serial number policy when undergoing torture. I was continually amused when the girls would reciprocate, asking what I studied. I'd taken a microbiology test an hour before, so I was still wearing the paramecium-emblazoned shirt I'd bought to give me power for the exam. If that wasn't enough, "SCIENCE!" was printed in giant letters right below it. Oh, and I have DNA tattooed onto my leg. What do you think my major is? I rolled with it, though: "English. I'm an English major."
There were a few fun questions. The "one wish left" icebreaker was easy. Considering that I was one of three white folk in a room filled with about 40 percent Spanish majors, I was wishing I'd spent more than three years on my foreign language requirement in high school.
Hoping to uncover some long-time fans, I used every opportunity to mention this writing gig. "Hidden talents? Well, I write for The Aggie - no one knows about that." Unless, of course, they recognize my writing style. Or the name below the headline. Or the giant picture of my face that runs above every article. That might be a tip-off.
Given that I can only rarely get out of bed in three minutes, I really didn't give the night a fair shot. But if forced at gunpoint to score it from one to 10, I'd say it went alright. I didn't make any hot steamy love connections, but my roommate did win the raffle, so that's something. As of this writing, my buddies are still waiting to hear back from their prospective matches, and since I know how you love gossip, loyal reader, I'll keep you posted.

CADE GRUNST is not lovelorn you silly readers, unless you have a gorgeous friend who digs short guys. In that case, send him an e-mail at cade@ucdavis.edu and he'll see if he can't set aside another three minutes.