once upon a workshop

i once attended a workshop titled "How to Stop Dating the Wrong Men"- or something like that. it was sponsored by the CDGLCC and i actually PAID $ to attend this charade.
i remembered this when i walked by the church (a church!) it was held in the other day.

i was hoping to gain some insight into my terrible dating habits. my last partner had died 2 months earlier of a drug overdose and my previous dating history, although not as fatal, was a bit of a train wreck.

through a series of circumstances i can't recall (and wasn't notified of in advance) the focus of the "workshop" became "How to Meet the Wrong Men." I guess the facilitator cancelled, so the entire event became a social meet-and-greet of sorts.

There was the meet everyone in the room schtick where you chat one-on-one until the bell rings and then find someone else. I spent many of the brief sessions "unpaired" as i refused to scurry around the room jotting down names and numbers.

Then there was the "testimonial" portion of the day, where Keith (filling in for the missing facilitator) waxed poetic about his brand new relationship of 6 months with Prince Charming and how he just KNEW it was True Love and would last 4ever.

I had been set up on a relatively informal blind date with this Prince Charming just before they started dating. There weren't any "sparks" between us- he kept playing Def Leppard songs on the jukebox- but we had remained flirty passing acquaintances, so i was probably the only person in the room who had an accurate mental picture to go with Keith's rambling personal anecdotes.

when the workshop ended, i felt as though i had been released from a trap. i was almost as relieved as when i narrowly avoided being sucked into that pyramid scheme where you hire homeless people to peddle knock-off scents on street corners.

a short time later, Prince Charming flashed me his bum in a club. Keith saw, and thus began the end of their fairytale romance.

the lesson in all this: when workshop facilitators don't show, cancel the damned workshop.