Nyc Comic Con’s Speed Dating for Geeks

Trying to find 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 throughout the 2010 nyc Comic Con in the Jacob K. Javits Center in new york October 8, 2010. (Timothy A. Clary, AFP / Getty Images)

Trying to find a girlfriend who really loves horror-movie paraphernalia and anime? She might be sitting across away from you at nyc Comic-Con’s speed-dating event. Brian Heater reports.

“You know Ke$ha, right?” asks the lady because of the plastic Freddie Krueger glove.

“Sure,” I answer, a bit baffled. Offered the unlimited conversational subjects presented by the jam-packed meeting occurring above our minds, i might not have guessed we’d broach the job associated with the “Tik Tok” singer so quickly.

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

There’s a place downtown, where in fact the freaks all come around. It’s a hole when you look at the wall surface. It’s a dirty free for all.

The parallels between nyc Comic-Con and that track are clear, she claims. First, the convention is downtown. (really, the Jacob K. Javits Center is certainly not downtown, but we don’t correct her. Nobody likes a know-it-all.) The freaks component, she claims, is inherent—the geeks, the dorks, the nerds (my terms), all decked away in costumes and paraphernalia.

The “hole into the wall surface part that is uncertain. I’ve got a couple of theories, but because of the fairly restricted extent of your date, We have them to myself.

Eventually, all of it adds up to that line that is final. Ny Comic-Con, it appears, is a dirty free for many.

Of course, there’s nothing particularly “dirty” going on in space 1A20. The area is sterile and well-lit, with 40 chairs that are folding arranged. When every three full minutes, the males are instructed to face up, simply take one step to their right, and begin anew because of the next woman that is available.

Emcee and self-styled geek standup Ryan Glitch operates a rather well-oiled device in a meeting space therefore steeped in intimate awkwardness you can cut it with a light-saber reproduction https://datingranking.net/de/colombiancupid-review/. “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 their big framework. We 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 female asks me personally. We hesitate for a moment and respond, “Comics, i assume.” It’s not as popular a response when I expected.

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

Glitch announces reassuringly to your type of dudes which he came across their “lovely associate” at a previous event—C5, he informs me later on, brief for Celebration, a semi-annual Star Wars meeting, the 5th of that was held come july 1st in Orlando. It absolutely was the time that is first one-man business, Lightning Fast Speed Dating, had taken component such a show, and it also 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 bottles in return for Star Gate trivia, and break jokes of debateable flavor in blended business.

Ours may be the 2nd of three sessions that are such during the period of New York Comic-Con’s 3 days, the other about speed dating through the meeting seemingly have captured the imagination for the show’s attendees. The lines are long, and Glitch will eventually turn individuals (mostly guys) away before opening the doorways. He counts from the females and an number that is equal of, cutting from the line right before me.

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

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

We make sure he understands that I’m because of the press. That I’m right here to report in the event, undercover.

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

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

“Well,” I answer, “you can’t say for sure.”