What's the Key?

Finally after, many months of trying to find time to check it out, I made it to a lock and key event in Long Beach. As always, there's a bit of insecurity about what to expect, what will they think, what will I think. But, once we get there it's....bizzare. You walk through a "tunnel" which opens into the bar/lounge/dance floor area. The men, with drinks in hand dot the periphery. The women, clustered together in small groups sit anxiously. The eyes glaring at you; you glare back. "Is this what I came for?" floats through my head. "Not that I expect to meet the beautiful people of the community, but please, give me some half-way decent options please", also floats through my head.

Even before the event starts, as they are still distributing the locks and keys, Mike approaches us and asks to give "it" a shot. We say, the event hasn't started, isn't there an official bell to kick off the evening? But Mike insists. I say what the hey and give him my lock, and it opens! Wow, that wasn't so hard. We go collect a raffle ticket, and get a new lock. Mike and I find a way to part with barely an introduction. I know nothing more about him other than that he's been to this event before.

From then on, it was a mad rush to find matches. I don't care about the guys. I don't care about meeting someone, learning about them, or anything. All I care about is finding another match to win a raffle ticket. The competitive greedy frenzy emerges. It's like this: You stand there, chatting with someone, guy or girl, lets call him John, and others walk by. As you are chatting with John, you hold out your lock as Mike or whomever walks by. Without asmuchas a break in the conversation with John, Mike has already inserted his key to my lock, realized it didn't work and has moved on. I continue the chat with John.

By the end of the evening I collected 2 cards, and gave one of mine away. The first actual conversation I had was with HR. Don't know how it is I came to actually speak with him. I just decided to try to get to know someone and settled on him. We chatted, he gave me his card. He's new to town. I'd like to get to know him as a friend; don't see potential, but he was nice and friendly.

The second was WJ who insisted that I give him my contact info. I said, give me your card, he said, he'd prefer to have my info. Ran into him again later in the evening, we conversed about him being so insistent on my info, when I said I would contact him. I thought it strange; doesn't he trust that I would contact him. Anyhow, I promised that I would contact him, which I will have to now. But, the conversation has soured whatever positive impression was left of him.

The third was IQ who had too much to drink and hence was a barrel of laughs. So, that totally reeled me in. I'm that easy it seems.