So Saturday night I went to a Lock and Key event because a friend wanted to go to a different speed dating event that I didn’t feel like going to (that sentence made perfect grammatical sense, right?). The back story is I went to a speed dating event way back in August, thinking it would be an interesting experience, and that it would be a good way to meet people. I was right on the first count, not as right about the second part. It certainly didn’t help that I had just gotten to Vegas when I did the event, was easily the youngest person in the room, and couldn’t really describe what I did for my job (come to think of it, I still can’t). Despite those hurdles, I ended up becoming friends with a few people I met, and even went on a date with the hostess at one point (which I don’t think is supposed to happen). Anywho, had invited some friends to go to the event again at the last speed dating event my friend hosted before she left. All save one declined, but one who missed out wanted to do it again. I didn’t particularly want to go back to that style, because I didn’t want to pay for it again (I got a free pass to the second one) and am willing to try most things at least once. Hence us ending up at the Lock and Key event.

The event didn’t get off to the best of starts. We showed up at the Palms and had no idea where exactly the event was. Problem was, neither did anyone at the hotel. We did eventually manage to find the place, by phoning the number buried in the confirmation e-mail. Despite the inauspicious beginning, things went okay. We each got two drink tickets, and there was food! So I did make a dinner out of appetizers. Looking around at the other attendees, my predictions in the parking lot turned out to be half right again. I was wrong about a single Indian dude of the engineering/programming variety showing up (No, I don’t count, and I’m brown so I’m allowed to make those kinds of terrible generalizations), but was right about being the youngest person there by a good 5-10 years (my friend being the other exception). The event itself worked by giving every guy a key and every guy a lock. You’re supposed to go around unlocking locks. Each time you do, both people go back to the main table and get a new lock or key and a raffle ticket. Yes, there were raffle tickets (and prizes!). This seemed to have a perverse incentive though, since you also got a prize for having the most raffle tickets at the end. So if you stopped and talked to someone, getting to know them, you had less time to unlock locks. Or maybe that perverse incentive really only affected people like me who get surprisingly competitive about really inane things…

The whole thing was an interesting experience. The lock and key were intentionally meant to be provocative and innuendo producing (I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Ooh, do you want to pop my lock?”), I got to hear horror stories from some of the women about some of the other dudes at the event (which makes me shudder to think what they might have been saying about me), met some interesting people, unlocked almost everyone’s lock at least once, was the only person to unlock one person’s lock, was flirted with by a way too old and too drunk Peruvian woman, and was asked at the end of the night by the host and hostess (who were a married couple) if my friend and I were there on a date night (no we weren’t, but now I’ll have to include a speed dating event as an acceptable activity to take a date to I guess)… The only person who’s lock I didn’t unlock was my friend’s (but that was because she changed her lock 4 times, if it had stayed the same, I would have gotten it eventually). I didn’t win a prize during the raffles but at the end of the night I did have the most raffle tickets (the woman who’s lock I was the only one to unlock and her friend gifted me their tickets before they left) and I won $50 bucks! So here’s the final tally for the night:

Cost of event: -$25
Things received: Interesting stories, dinner’s worth of appetizers, and two drink tickets. If I actually drank, I might have gotten my money’s worth.
Prize for most tix: +$50

Drove everywhere too, but I still think I came out ahead overall for the night. And I got a decent picture taken of me where I don’t have red eyes/demon eyes. So that’s a win!

I’m obviously holding the key to my heart