I was nervous at my first Speed Dating event. I\u2019d prepared as best I could, and even wore a tie to look gentlemanly. Each table had been given little prompt cards in an envelope to get conversation flowing. A pretty woman with red hair in a ponytail sat in front of me and smiled. I liked her immediately and became tongue-tied. We shook hands and I forgot my name but luckily, she clocked my name badge.<\/p>\n
\u201cOk, Dave let\u2019s do this shall we?\u201d<\/p>\n
Reaching forward she opened the envelope that had been sitting on the table and took out one of the prompt cards. “Name a secret talent you have,” it read, and she told me how she was a high-level yoga instructor who could bring her feet over her head, but she wasn\u2019t going to do it right here in this bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow about you?\u201d she asked, taking a sip of cool white wine. I scratched my head for a moment and then laughed. \u201cI\u2019m really good at arithmetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProve it!\u201d she challenged with a smile, \u201cErm, what\u2019s 7 times\u00a06?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c42.\u201d I said, a little annoyed at the simplicity of her question.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I knew that,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow about you tell me your phone number and I will add up and multiply all the digits for you in less than two seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her forehead gave way to a frown. \u201cWoah, bit early to be giving out phone numbers isn’t it, Dave?\u201d<\/p>\n
I chewed my tongue. \u201cFine,\u201d I said, looking around the room. \u201cUse the number of the bar.\u201d I shoved a beer mat towards her.<\/p>\n
After polishing off her glass of Pinot Grigio and wiping her mouth, she flipped the mat over and read out the number to me. I closed my eyes and focused for a moment, humming quietly. I sensed she was staring at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you add them up you get 52, if you multiply the digits together then the total will be 2,688.\u201d I leaned back and opened my eyes. There was a pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut how do I know if that\u2019s true? You could be making it up for all I know,\u201d she said with an incredulous look on her face.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not making it up; why would I make it up? You can check.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t bring a calculator speed dating, darlin\u2019,\u201d she said, looking around the room at the men on the other tables.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The bell rang and she rose without shaking my hand. I shrugged off the rejection, knowing there were still another nineteen women to meet. I stole back the coaster and put the prompt card back at the top of the envelope. Casually I sipped my beer, glancing down at the square of paper on my lap with the notes I had made the other day. Yeah, I was right: it was definitely 2,688.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cHow about you tell me your phone number and I will add up and multiply all the digits for you in less than two seconds.\u201d Her forehead gave way to a frown. \u201cWoah, bit early to be giving out phone numbers isn’t it, Dave?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[3565,64,3380,2404,3563,3564],"class_list":["post-20019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-british","tag-dating","tag-lies","tag-romance","tag-speed-dating","tag-talent","writer-daniel-bird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20019"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20486,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20019\/revisions\/20486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}