Ny Comic Con’s Speed Dating for Geeks

Looking for a gf whom really loves horror film paraphernalia and anime? She that are sitting across away from you at nyc Comic Con’s speed-dating event. Brian Heater reports.

Brian Heater

a meeting goer appears close to Ork from Warhammer 40,000 through the 2010 ny Comic Con at the Jacob K. Javits Center in new york October 8, 2010. (Timothy A. Clary, AFP / Getty Images)

Looking for a gf whom really loves horror-movie paraphernalia and anime? She that are sitting across away from you at ny Comic-Con’s speed-dating event. Brian Heater reports.

“You know Ke$ha, right?” asks the lady utilizing the synthetic Freddie Krueger glove.

“Sure,” I answer, a bit baffled. Because of the limitless conversational subjects presented by the convention that is jam-packed above our minds, i’d do not have guessed we’d broach the job associated with the “Tik Tok” singer therefore quickly.

“There’s a song,” the girl explains, “Take it well.” She recites the chorus,

There’s a accepted place downtown, in which the freaks all come around. It’s a hole within the wall surface. It’s a dirty free for many.

The parallels between ny Comic-Con and that track are unmistakeable, she states. First, the convention is downtown. (really, the Jacob K. Javits Center is perhaps not downtown, but we don’t correct her. No body likes a know-it-all.) The freaks component, she states, is inherent—the geeks, the dorks, the nerds (my terms), all decked down in costumes and paraphernalia.

The “hole when you look at the wall surface” component remains uncertain. I’ve got a couple of theories, but because of the fairly restricted length of our date, We have them to myself.

Eventually, it all results in that final line. Nyc Comic-Con, this indicates, is a dirty free for several.

Of course, there’s absolutely nothing that is particularly“dirty on in space 1A20. The space is sterile and well-lit, with 40 foldable chairs neatly arranged. As soon as every three full minutes, the guys are instructed to face up, take one step to their right, and begin anew because of the next available woman.

Emcee and self-styled geek standup Ryan Glitch runs an extremely well-oiled device in a meeting space so steeped in intimate awkwardness you can cut it with a replica that is light-saber. “They call me personally ‘Giganakin,’” Glitch announces before the session commences, “because I’m overweight, and my costume is Anakin.”

The declaration is not completely accurate. He’s a guy that is big certainly—a self-proclaimed stereotypical showgoer (hefty, white, nerdy)—but there’s no Jedi paraphernalia on his big framework. We dating for seniors have been first introduced to him outside, as he separates us into lines of male and female, forbidding pre-show inter-gender conversations, muttering the phrase “sausage-fest” many times, and usually lamenting the dearth of X chromosomes.

“What kind of geek are you?” a lady asks me. We hesitate for a moment and respond, “Comics, i assume.” It’s not as popular a remedy when I expected.

It’s a problem, without doubt, provided by both relative lines, and Glitch and their scantily clad girlfriend start the entire process of flagging down ladies.

Glitch announces reassuringly towards the line of dudes he tells me later, short for Celebration, a semi-annual Star Wars convention, the fifth of which was held this summer in Orlando that he met his “lovely assistant” at a past event—C5. It had been the first-time Glitch’s one-man company, Lightning Fast Speed Dating, had taken component this kind of a show, plus it ended up being a rousing success, by many records.

Him downstairs at the Javits Center, however, he has traded his Jedi robes for sunglasses and a black T-shirt when we first spot. It’s only after an assistant hands him a black colored fabric coat|leather that is black} and fake synthetic shotgun with a bright orange tip that he’s more than simply a speed-dating host; he’s a cyborg sent through the future to facilitate nerd love, offer water containers in trade for Star Gate trivia, and split jokes of dubious flavor in blended company.

Ours could be the 2nd of three such sessions held during the period of brand new York Comic-Con’s three times, then one about speed dating throughout the meeting appears to have captured the imagination for the show’s attendees. The lines are long, and Glitch will finally turn people (mostly guys) away before opening the doorways. He counts from the females and an equal quantity of males, cutting from the line prior to me personally.

“Can we keep in touch with you for an extra?” I ask.

“Am I in some trouble?” the Terminator reacts.

He is told by me that I’m aided by the press. That I’m right here to report regarding the event, undercover.

“Are you single?” he responds. We nod.

“Are you right here simply to report, or have you been looking for someone?”

“Well,” I answer, “you never understand.”