Speed Dating for Professionals - the Village Drinks Experience

We here at Rentist have long been fascinated by Village Drinks, who put on social events (speed dating, presumably) providing the  "chance to network with other like-minded professionals; politicians, bankers, lawyers, media". As odious as this sounds, autumn isn't far away and at our age perhaps it's time to settle down with someone shiny who has bleached teeth and a tight t-shirt? We sent one of our investigative team to their event on the 21st August to find out more...

Set back in a Georgian square often forgotten about in the hub-buzz of downtown Arab and Russians creaming off to Selfridges land ("Oxford Street"), Village Drinks August 2013 offered insight to the buzzing world of homosexuality post removal of the ban on intersamesex marriage. Had life changed for them? Were they now integrated? Would they be acceptable as people to talk to, look at, perhaps show your parents to? Questions surely all to be answered over three hours of mingling.

Upon entry, I briefly forgot my name after an ironical conversation earlier with my ultra powerful journalistic editor friend about how you can forget your name when checking in bags at the airport. When I remembered my name a gentlemen in blond hair wrote it on a label which had a preprinted orange sticker on it. My friend, a powerful journalistic editor friend, got his name written on a preprinted yellow sticker. After introductions with the blond sticker man we were advised of a cloakroom.

Cloakroom facilities were open and unattended - some hesitation about leaving bags was quelled by looking around and seeing the heavy presence of foreign bouncers almost everywhere (how exclusive I felt).

Moving from the cloakroom, upon entering "the garden" it seemed busy. A slither of excitement entered my veins. Hope. Marriage. Wooly jumpers and picket fences. It was all coming together in my mind. Accompanied by my ultra powerful journalistic editor friend, we pushed through "the garden" to the "airy orange room" and settled with two small white wines (£4.80 each - chavougion blanc du rhomenese et phumph).

Conversation gailed and howled. We observed with a rigorous observance the others. So well dressed. So shiny. So middle management. Some faces stood out like they do at the beginning of a club night when some people do look genuinely attractive. However, an interruption came from a microphoned booth (microphone by Stannah). An organiser (possibly Daniel?) said "You may all be wondering why you have colour stickers on this evening" The organiser delivered the fruit bowl surprise of the evening. If you had a yellow sticker (me) you should go talk to someone with a blue sticker. My ultra powerful journalistic friend (orange) and myself pretended our stickers were the appropriate combination for conversation and tried our best to make sure no one would come talk to us - despite desperate inner feelings for someone to please come and be our friends for the evening.

Fruit bowl surprise subsided, we returned to "the garden". Men of all middle management creeds were there. Tall ones, overweight ones, old ones, older ones and very shiny ones. Noted fellows included a child in a yellow polo shirt who, I believe, there was a rule that everyone old and desperate enough must talk to him. Other noted fellows included a man in red trousers - apparently he sounded like he had good conversation, to the extent that you could overlook the red trousers (accordingly to my ultra powerful journalistic editor friend).

Wine round two meant a return inside to the "orange airy room" to the bar. But we were stopped in our tracks. Someone from Surbition (TFL zone forget about it) recognised me from Grindr. If only we all felt that recognising someone off that app gave you a valid reason to approach them (even if you had been rude and blocked them after their incessant 'hi', 'hi', "hi", "hi" and ' hey were you at the hospital with your mum' messaging). However, we were there in investigative spirit and so it seemed inappropriate to punch them in the face and tell them to fuck off. We had a conversation with someone new. And we learnt the art of finding a reason to leave "we have to go outside (to be alone again) now".

Inside, outside and inside again. The highlights were the hot revelations (poitical and otherwise) from my friend and his great hair cut. Around 10.30, we concluded that the only people left were the "regulars" at this night which claimed to be spontaneous and diverse. We also on balance concluded we were both useless integrators. Blaming all the other homosexuals, we left. I collected my unattended bag (not stolen) and settled into the Victoria line tube train with a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment, warmth and hope.

Perhaps Village Drinks keeps going year after year after year in a way North Korea keeps going - through magic and blessed mountains. I'd go again, just may not every month.