New York style dating

This afternoon, I was unusually referred to as Carrie Bradshaw several times during one coffee date (I use date in the context of two friends meeting for a hot beverage at a scheduled time). This friend - lets call her Singer Friend - and I meet regularly for coffee and she is a seasoned listener to my men woes. This friend is also something of a matchmaker and had alerted me a couple of weeks ago that after a dry patch, she was ready to get going again and had me firmly on her list of potentials...

For 2011 she's decided to encourage 'New York style dating' amongst her friends and acquaintances - dates that don't necessarily mean either party is massively interested, but that are a way of getting to know people. Thus, she is in the process of setting up several couples on blind dates (I am the fourth this week) with no strings attached. She compared it to Sex and the City (though insisting that as we're good Christians there'll be no sex) and likened me to Carrie. Honestly, Carrie and I don't have much in common - except for blonde, sporadically wild hair; something of a shoe interest; and a passion for writing - so this was really quite a compliment.

Singer Friend is so into this that I joked that she was like Sally's friend in When Harry Met Sally who had a rolladex containing possible men - her response was that as she'd walked through the bookstore in which we were drinking she'd browsed the nice notebook section with a view to using one for such a purpose.

Anyway, the upshot of this is that I have a date - next week in fact. Exact date is to be negotiated via Singer Friend, but it's very much on the cards. I have his name, but he doesn't know mine (she thinks that women prefer to have at least a little bit of info to go on), I've also sworn not to look him up on Facebook. I recognised the name (it's a guy from church) but though I can't recall what he looks like, have a vague recollection that I've seen photos of him & been vaguely intrigued. But it's just one date and already she's planning more...

I just hope that it's more successful than the last time she tried to matchmake me. She'd mentioned a guy who'd met me at her engagement party and circumstances meant that she didn't have chance to organise a date before her wedding. So what did she do instead? Seat us together at the reception, of course! On a table with no one I knew - without any of my many friends who were present - I was stuck next to a guy with an unfortunate first name who's most interesting topic of conversation was a recent translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Spanish. We had nothing in common and I spent a lot of the reception trying to escape him (while one dear, dear friend sniggered from a neighbouring table). Since then she's apologised profusely and now I'm ready to trust her judgement. Let's see what happens.