A stranger sat at her table, claiming to be her soulmate. And as Trudie looked him up and down, she concluded he may well have been right, he didn’t discern himself from the other four men she had met at this speed dating fiasco. As her soulmate started to lean in, his breath beginning to warm her face and fill her nostrils, a bell sounded, and Trudie sat bolt upright. “Nice to meet you!” she said, offering her fore and second finger to shake his hand. Her mate took her hand and started to pull it toward him, she looked up, her expression to him said it all and he let go.

Trudie leant back on her seat, reaching for her mobile phone, “I think you’ve got me next!” came a voice from above, Trudie looked up but aside from a mass of hair, the figure was obscured by a light above his head! Somewhat thrown, she dropped her phone back into her bag and apologised. “I was just checking my phone, “she started to say, when the voice responded, “To find out who to blame?” Trudie laughed, that is exactly her sentiment, but she cut short her laugh into a snort because she didn’t want to hurt the new person’s feelings.

Looking across the table, she saw nothing to change her thinking, except for the person in front was laughing heartily at their own joke. A few moments passed before laugh died down and a hand appeared across the table. “Glenn, I note you prefer the formal greeting” Trudie looked at the outstretched hand and took it. “Trudie, and you are correct, experience has taught me I need to be in charge of my personal space!”

Glenn didn’t seem perturbed by her statement; in fact, he didn’t seem interested in her at all. At that moment he was putting down his own mobile phone on the table. Trudie looked directly at him, “Oh I like to set my own timer, I have a suspicion that they read the room rather than actually time you.” he nodded toward his phone as he spoke, and Trudie could indeed see the stopwatch function on his phone actively counting time.

She started to respond to Glenn’s comments, but he continued. “I would if it were my evening to organise, although I am not sure if I'd prolong the chats between the awkward or the successful.” Again, Trudie felt compelled to follow his gaze around the room. “Look around, you can see the people who are not comfortable and the people who are probably hitting it off, so which is the more entertaining?” A quick look at the other couples told two stories, one of blossoming romance and one of burgeoning doom.

As she studied the faces of the other participants sitting across from each other, Trudie started to feel a level of sadness, she was struck by one young man being largely ignored by a very gregarious young woman, and then she spied his perfect partner. To his left was a young woman, equally tortured by this process, being talked at by a very affirmative man, who pointed at his watch an inordinate number of times to emphasise his point.

Trudie did a quick count and deduced that they would in fact end up together at the very next round, and with that she felt a sense of panic, looking to her left she wondered who her next match would be. At that moment she realised that she did have a match sitting across from her, someone she knew only as Glenn, but nothing more. She began to blush, realising that in a period when she should have been focused, she had slipped into her own thoughts. It had been easy, so often her only source of company, Trudie had learned to enjoy these quiet times but now she was being rude.

“It doesn’t matter!” Trudie snapped round, back to her match, and heard his words. “It doesn’t matter?” She repeated, is that what he had said, she thought so but was relying on autopilot for this bit. Glenn gently shook his head, “Spending time in your own head, is not something you need to worry about!” Trudie looked at him, she couldn’t work it out, it wasn’t arrogance, was it confidence, or could it simply be he was terrible at speed dating. He smiled and took a drink from his coffee cup.

“I’m trying to work you out.” She said officiously. Then felt compelled to explain, “You are person number six, and you have not behaved anything like the other men who have sat before me this evening. I can’t work you out!” Glenn didn’t say a word; he replaced his cup on the saucer and wiped his lip. “Are you a journalist?” she blurted out. “No, is that what you are expecting this evening?” his response was definitive but also seemed to draw more from her. “I am not sure what I was expecting,” she said, “a load of men unable to find a woman, probably!” she finished. He laughed, she at once felt comforted and embarrassed, she liked his laugh, he had laughed earlier, but she realised she had been insulting to him. Trudie joined him in his laughing, she relaxed and took a sip from her wine glass.

“My purpose, coming here today, is to satisfy my well-meaning friend who wants me to find someone so my hanging out with him and his wife isn’t so weird.” Her expression made it clear to Glenn he was going to have to elaborate, so continued, “I divorced, about three years ago and my friend and his wife felt sorry for me, didn’t want me to be alone, but they now find themselves forced to invite me out or over every weekend and it looks odd, the three of us! I’m not interested in finding someone to love, I had that, but I think he, and they, would like me to find someone who can make us a foursome and therefore normal.” Trudie immediately recognised that situation, she had been living it with her sister. She had been widowed, and wasn’t looking for a partner, but her sister was tired of her being the third wheel, not in so many words, but she knew. “Glenn” she said, “I think you have just met your soulmate!”