February Flop = Alibi

Friday night was our much-anticipated excursion to Alibi which is a lounge in the bottom of the Liberty Hotel… the same building that houses Clink, where went for our first blind date. The actual venue is pretty cool, although VERY dark as it is supposed to have an upscale “jail” vibe (if there is such a thing). It has brick walls and floors like a historic jail and bars on some of the windows. The best part was the poster-sized celebrity mug shots; the one closest to us was Lindsey Lohan! Now we arrive to the cons of the place. First off the actual bar was pretty small and already full when we arrived around 10pm so we choose a corner table where we hoped to look approachable. Since we were at a table we had to be served by a waitress who seemed annoyed by our presence. She may have been annoyed because we ordered water and a drink but spent the first half hour only sipping water. This was due to a measuring mishap at home in which Rachel’s drink was given 2 tall shots. So we had to combine both of our cups and swish them around Starbucks style in order to make the proportions strong but more equal. We had already consumed one drink, so needless to say we were ready for some water.

Alibi

As we sipped our drinks the first thing I noticed was a couple making out in a dark corner. The woman was pinned up against the wall and they were full-on making out for at least an hour… I think it would have been a cheaper date to just stay home. Eventually Rachel shifted her seat to block their display. The next funny group of people was a pair of middle aged women (probably us in about 20 years) who were approached by a pair of middle aged men. They proceeded to be the only people who danced to Tupac and Biggie on the non-existent dance floor. It was quite cute to watch them bumping and grinding and salasing away with no inhibitions. That is another weird thing about Alibi, they were playing old-school hip hop which was great but it didn’t really seem to fit with the whole vibe. So we sat and observed and tried to make our body language seem approachable as groups of professional men walked by. At this point it was after 11pm so things should have been picking up. We were debating ordering another drink when one gentleman walked up to our table and we thought we might just have a point of contact, but he was only coming to place his coat on the ledge behind our table. So after that, feeling like nothing more than chop liver and a coat rack we decided to try our luck back upstairs at Clink.

At this point in the night Clink was pretty full and the bar was crowded so I squeezed my way in to order a drink. Here comes the only point of contact for the night: the man standing next to me asked what I was having and I replied with the obvious “rum and coke”. He said, “Oh yeah that’s what I’m having too, a Captain Morgan and coke.” I hope I didn’t literally role my eyes at him as I said, “I am going for something a little darker.” I think he felt embarrassed because he responded by saying that at the age of 40 he should have grown out of Captain and coke by now. His friend who was standing next to him was talking about his iphone ap that allows you to shake the phone and get a cocktail suggestion. The man said he would buy our drinks if we went for whatever the iphone ap turned up. I said the odds were pretty low that it would come up with something I like. By that time our drinks had been made and we exited the situation of two middle-aged men trying to feel young again. We did several laps of the venue only to feel claustrophobic from all of the groups of mid-thirty finance men in their button-up, collared shirts with khaki pants. So after finishing our drink we decided to depart as it was after 12 anyways and the T was calling.

So all-in-all Alibi was a flop and we had pretty high expectations for it. So we will be on the search for a new, more exciting venue and go into it with lower expectations. Also look out for the next blog entry in early March which will include a pair of out-of-town visitors!

First in February = Crazy Blind Date Weekend

So already some of the parameters have been broken… but for a good cause, Crazy Blind Date. This service was introduced to us by a friend living in Washington D.C. We went on two dates and while they did take us to brand new venues in Boston, we did not fully dress up for fear of totally blowing away our prospective dates. A quick run-down of Crazy Blind Date (here-on out known as CBD)… CBD is an online service run by the creators of another dating website. It cuts out all the work though because you simply fill out some basic stats about yourself (height, education, etc) and the kind of person you want to go on a date with. You also fill out maybe 4 short blurbs about what kind of date you want, select locations you are willing to go out in, and voila, you wait for your date to be set up. Of course there is the option to go on a double-date which Rachel and I immediately choose. The website chooses the actual venue you will go to, so you see, very little coordination has to be done on your part.

Clink!

Date #1 was on Friday night at a place called Clink in the Liberty Hotel right off the Charles/MGH stop. Once inside the hotel you go up an escalator which dumps you into a big lobby area with a small bar against one wall. The hotel is a former jail but it has been re-modeled in a very modern, hip way so the space itself was really cool. There is a tall, tall ceiling and multiple balcony areas that look like the old cat-walks of the jail. In order to complete the jail effect there are fake bars over some windows. The crowd at the bar is all very trendy, young professional people so when Rachel and I showed up in our jeans we felt a bit under-dressed. The drinks are expensive, $10 for a Mount Gay rum and coke. We got a round of drinks and waited for our dates to arrive.

CBD has this feature which allows you to send and receive text-messages from your dates through an automated number. So one date said he was running late and… imagine our surprise when the other date said he had been in a fender-bender and would not be able to make it. It seemed like such a fool-proof plan, almost like getting mail-order brides for the evening. But as fate would have it, Rachel and I ended up entertaining only one gentleman who was over 30 minutes late. He was nice enough and we all ended up chatting for a long time as two more rounds of drinks were bought. The place really filled up and we had a fun time people-watching as our own awkward threesome. The most awkwardness happened at the end of the night when we parted ways. Our date said something about getting our numbers (plural) and we both said ok but then continued to walk through the gates for the T. It is hard to explain how this happened but we left with no contact information on either end. In terms of the venue I would definitely go back sometime and I am actually excited to try the club in the bottom of the hotel called Alibi (has anyone been?). I will be more dressed up though!

When we got home on Friday night we had already been scheduled for date #2 so we figured we would try our luck at actually getting two different people to entertain. On Saturday night we were scheduled to go to a place called Via Matta in the Back Bay. Again it was very close to a T stop which was good. It was not the best venue for a blind date though. Via Matta is an intimate Italian restaurant with only a small bar area. Since we were not there to eat we had to sit in the bar area and ask if we could push together two of the tiny tables. Most other people seemed to be eating and the waitress was a bit snobby after we said we would only be drinking.

Via Matta

A theme with CBD seems to be that they take you to very expensive and ritzy places. I wonder if they know something specific about the economic status of CBD clientele. Again Rachel and I arrived first, and then came one of the male dates. We got a text that the other one would be late. The first date was not very talkative and so after we ordered a round of drinks and went through basic introductions things got awkward and there were many of those long silent pauses. Again the guy was nice enough but very normal, Boston, investment banker kind of guy. Luckily the other date showed up right as I was thinking… time to jet. He was very out-going and held the conversation together for a second round of drinks. By the way Dark ‘n’ Stormies were $10 a piece and they did not have any American beers even if you did want to go for something cheaper. Male date number two also fit into another other Boston category; lives in Cambridge and does IT work. But again he was nice and not offensive at all.

At the end of the evening Rachel and I claimed we had to meet other friends but the two males decided to go out together to another place! I think most people use CBD just to find other people to hang out with, obviously not as a real match-making service. This time we did exchange contact info as one of the dates whipped out business cards for all. So who knows if we will hang out again as a foursome of friends? I wouldn’t mind some new people to hang out with. But the verdict on the venue is that I never need to go back there… overpriced and a pretentious atmosphere.

And now we are also wondering if the venues are informed that they will be used by clients of CBD? Did our snobby waitress guess that we were on a double blind date? Do they get an advertising deal? So many questions about the strategies of CBD...