To love is to be human.
Curated Connections is an events company that offers South African singles an in-person alternative to the bleak mire that is dating apps.
Like those apps, like any tool that makes the commodification of connection more accessible, such events and socials are things I have neglected. Not as some statement or protest against the reality of modern dating but rather a refusal to interact with it in the first place.
Fantasy kept me away.
The vain hope that my to-be lover and ever after would appear as a radiant obstruction to one of my everyday activities was entertained instead.
The result: one failed relationship, a broken heart and staring down twenty-six-years-old as a single man with a lot of love to give, little in the way of structure to give it and zero prospects with regards to a recipient.
So, when coming across one of Curated Connections’ events that included me in their age range, I acquiesced.
To love is to be human but dating is a skill like any other, and I could use the practice.
The Shadow of the Beast.
The event, Opposites Attract, is Yin Yang themed. Black and/or white is the dress-code and the venue, naturally, is The Greenhouse… In Sandton. Joy.
I feel like bourgeois commentary on the evils of Capitalism is about as played out and ineffectual as everything else we do. Whatever I say is irrelevant, I’m still going, I’m still participating in the system that is killing us, and more selfishly I have entered in search for a partner so that I may not be killed alone.
Sandton City is usually as far as I venture but today my destination leads me to the heart. Monoliths curtain my path to the CBD and three thirty appears as dusk. Perhaps I should not have worn sunglasses.
I arrive at a compound wherein I can only guess presides a house of green.
In the parking lot I meet a short, thin, Indian man in mostly black and white garb. He looks to be in his thirties and about as happy to be here as I feel. I ask him for directions but it’s also his first time. So, we toddle off together while trying and failing to communicate any further—we have no context in which to understand one another.
We emerge to discover concrete and black tile fashioned to appear as marble, a phalanx of purported hospitality. There is something or other restaurant and this or that cocktail lounge; a large booking is enjoying a birthday celebration the likes of which can only end in heart-breaking bank statements and liver damage.
Attempting to feel whole through excess is like trying to pack a wound with razor-wire.
I feel like bourgeois commentary on the evils of Capitalism is about as played out and ineffectual as everything else we do. Whatever I say is irrelevant, I’m still going, I’m still participating in the system that is killing us, and more selfishly I have entered in search for a partner so that I may not be killed alone.
Sandton City is usually as far as I venture but today my destination leads me to the heart. Monoliths curtain my path to the CBD and three thirty appears as dusk. Perhaps I should not have worn sunglasses.
I arrive at a compound wherein I can only guess presides a house of green.
In the parking lot I meet a short, thin, Indian man in mostly black and white garb. He looks to be in his thirties and about as happy to be here as I feel. I ask him for directions but it’s also his first time. So, we toddle off together while trying and failing to communicate any further—we have no context in which to understand one another.
We emerge to discover concrete and black tile fashioned to appear as marble, a phalanx of purported hospitality. There is something or other restaurant and this or that cocktail lounge; a large booking is enjoying a birthday celebration the likes of which can only end in heart-breaking bank statements and liver damage.
Attempting to feel whole through excess is like trying to pack a wound with razor-wire.
Expensive Tonic, Sobriety’s Regret.
We move deeper in till the tiling changes to green and I cry-out like Columbus: Queue!
It all happens rather quickly. I am checked for weapons and then checked against a list of printed names. Passing both, I receive a cut page containing twelve would you rather questions and a corresponding table to mark results in.
The game, a conversation aid, is to answer the questions and then compare your answers with participants you’d like to mingle with. The gimmick of the evening: if every answer is different and you are deemed entirely incompatible you win free drinks for you and your attracted opposite.
I am also handed a sticker of a heart with which I can trade for my complementary drink, the one that comes with the R190 ticket to the event.
The waitress hates me, no, she hates everyone here. The place is filled with us, and no one is ordering anything, not for a few more hours anyway. Our presence is depriving her of an income, yet she still has to serve.
I ask for a non-alcoholic option. She looks at me like dirt and manages to suggest juice. I ask for a tonic water, the glass she brings me contains four ice cubes I fully suspect she fished from a urinal.
Me and my adopted Indian man find what few seats remain and with it: the context needed to make small talk while waiting for the event to officially start.
It’s funny how the socially uncomfortable find comfort in each other. If he were a woman I would have asked her to skip the event to go gallivanting into the night with me…whatever that could possibly mean.
But he’s not. What he is, is a manager at a Takealot facility.
“Work in the city is good, but I’m lonely.”
I make an overly familiar sarcastic joke in response and inform him that that is why we’re all here. He is older than me, but I can’t help but feel paternal. He even allowed me to grab his shoulder and fix his collar; I wanted to give him a sandwich and an apple and tell him to go make friends at school.
I don’t want kids. I can’t stand the idea of bringing pure innocence into this cruel dying world.
It all happens rather quickly. I am checked for weapons and then checked against a list of printed names. Passing both, I receive a cut page containing twelve would you rather questions and a corresponding table to mark results in.
The game, a conversation aid, is to answer the questions and then compare your answers with participants you’d like to mingle with. The gimmick of the evening: if every answer is different and you are deemed entirely incompatible you win free drinks for you and your attracted opposite.
I am also handed a sticker of a heart with which I can trade for my complementary drink, the one that comes with the R190 ticket to the event.
The waitress hates me, no, she hates everyone here. The place is filled with us, and no one is ordering anything, not for a few more hours anyway. Our presence is depriving her of an income, yet she still has to serve.
I ask for a non-alcoholic option. She looks at me like dirt and manages to suggest juice. I ask for a tonic water, the glass she brings me contains four ice cubes I fully suspect she fished from a urinal.
Me and my adopted Indian man find what few seats remain and with it: the context needed to make small talk while waiting for the event to officially start.
It’s funny how the socially uncomfortable find comfort in each other. If he were a woman I would have asked her to skip the event to go gallivanting into the night with me…whatever that could possibly mean.
But he’s not. What he is, is a manager at a Takealot facility.
“Work in the city is good, but I’m lonely.”
I make an overly familiar sarcastic joke in response and inform him that that is why we’re all here. He is older than me, but I can’t help but feel paternal. He even allowed me to grab his shoulder and fix his collar; I wanted to give him a sandwich and an apple and tell him to go make friends at school.
I don’t want kids. I can’t stand the idea of bringing pure innocence into this cruel dying world.
Colonel K.
There is no space left save but a chair between me and my Indian man as more people file-in.
She is wearing purple lipstick and all white clothing. She beams a smile my way that says:
“Hello, I’m smiling because I want to not because it’s expected.”
She asks to join but I’ve already pulled the chair out for her.
I’ve been called a gentleman more times in my life than I have been called just barely decent, what people don’t get is that they’re the same thing.
Katlego. It’s not her real name.
But after introductions we get talking. She’s a mechanic for the SAAF; she works on maintaining aeroplanes and helicopters and has no interest in discussing how cool that is.
She wants to know why we’re not talking to any women and if one has caught our eye.
Only then did I really look.
The rainbow nation was well represented within the twenty-four to thirty-nine-year-old range. I think everyone is older than me though. At my age if you want a partner you take out a student loan and go to university.
I don’t really care.
I answer her question honestly and return it back to her. She turns enigmatic and shrugs me off no differently.
She’s the missing element to a now shared endeavour.
A trio on the periphery. Outsiders, strangers, but comrades in our shared displeasure of being here.
As the event officially commences, I stand rigid and offer a salute to Katlego. Colonel K.
She laughs like a flock of birds departing to migrate and returns the hand gesture.
We will tarry alone in the setting sun and debrief in the cold of its wake.
She is wearing purple lipstick and all white clothing. She beams a smile my way that says:
“Hello, I’m smiling because I want to not because it’s expected.”
She asks to join but I’ve already pulled the chair out for her.
I’ve been called a gentleman more times in my life than I have been called just barely decent, what people don’t get is that they’re the same thing.
Katlego. It’s not her real name.
But after introductions we get talking. She’s a mechanic for the SAAF; she works on maintaining aeroplanes and helicopters and has no interest in discussing how cool that is.
She wants to know why we’re not talking to any women and if one has caught our eye.
Only then did I really look.
The rainbow nation was well represented within the twenty-four to thirty-nine-year-old range. I think everyone is older than me though. At my age if you want a partner you take out a student loan and go to university.
I don’t really care.
I answer her question honestly and return it back to her. She turns enigmatic and shrugs me off no differently.
She’s the missing element to a now shared endeavour.
A trio on the periphery. Outsiders, strangers, but comrades in our shared displeasure of being here.
As the event officially commences, I stand rigid and offer a salute to Katlego. Colonel K.
She laughs like a flock of birds departing to migrate and returns the hand gesture.
We will tarry alone in the setting sun and debrief in the cold of its wake.
Gamification.
I’m flagged over by a woman I have no interest in. We meet halfway, her smile sincere but her blue-eyes wonder the crowd after a short examination of my face.
We do well on the game, almost entirely incompatible. We could have won in record time save for two ticks amongst a sea of crosses. I tell her we could have made a good team and that there will always be a next time. She nods with the enthusiasm of an old friend agreeing to plans and wishes me well on my way.
GG.
Go next.
Her name is Tracy, and her makeup doesn’t match the hazel of her skin. Her voice holds a kindness in it the likes that can only be earned through immense suffering. I don’t know if she is beautiful, but I like to think she is. I’ll never know because it’s over and I’m whisked off by my next match.
An Indian woman with gold jewelry, Ruhita is her name, leads me to the outside couches and we are shortly joined by her friend.
We all play the game well, in so much that we don’t play it at all. The second question gets us conversing: we speak about our professions and then a little bit about our thoughts and feelings.
We have no future together.
She is thirteen years older than me and at a different stage of her life. She asks me for the gen-z outlook on the world and its trajectory.
My previously composed face scrunches into a grin as my answer erupts in a hideous guffaw:
“Not great dude.”
We finish the game, and she tells me we’ll catch-up later in the evening. I am not a liar, so I neglect to respond.
My next encounter lands me amongst a group of very rich women. The first clue was their clinical beauty. The second was that they looked absolutely miserable, save for the lady who laughed at everything I said. No, she was laughing at everything in general as her fully dilated eyes darted between nothing and the abyss.
I couldn’t leave their company quickly enough.
We do well on the game, almost entirely incompatible. We could have won in record time save for two ticks amongst a sea of crosses. I tell her we could have made a good team and that there will always be a next time. She nods with the enthusiasm of an old friend agreeing to plans and wishes me well on my way.
GG.
Go next.
Her name is Tracy, and her makeup doesn’t match the hazel of her skin. Her voice holds a kindness in it the likes that can only be earned through immense suffering. I don’t know if she is beautiful, but I like to think she is. I’ll never know because it’s over and I’m whisked off by my next match.
An Indian woman with gold jewelry, Ruhita is her name, leads me to the outside couches and we are shortly joined by her friend.
We all play the game well, in so much that we don’t play it at all. The second question gets us conversing: we speak about our professions and then a little bit about our thoughts and feelings.
We have no future together.
She is thirteen years older than me and at a different stage of her life. She asks me for the gen-z outlook on the world and its trajectory.
My previously composed face scrunches into a grin as my answer erupts in a hideous guffaw:
“Not great dude.”
We finish the game, and she tells me we’ll catch-up later in the evening. I am not a liar, so I neglect to respond.
My next encounter lands me amongst a group of very rich women. The first clue was their clinical beauty. The second was that they looked absolutely miserable, save for the lady who laughed at everything I said. No, she was laughing at everything in general as her fully dilated eyes darted between nothing and the abyss.
I couldn’t leave their company quickly enough.
Disassociation.
My voice is hoarse from shouting just to be heard.
So, I observe.
Through the clamour, a woman’s body-language stands-out to me.
She is attentive to her suitors, but her eyes are sad, she doesn’t want to be here. I notice the movement of her head when she emphasises a point and the relaxation of her shoulders when conversing with the group of friends she retreats with. I notice her glossy black hair and the way she clutches her handbag when walking between the bar and her table. I notice her displeasure in the food she has ordered for dinner.
She is perfect and I won’t approach her.
What good is an introduction when shouted? How can anything grow from such a painful thing?
It’s too much noise and too many people for anything to be well-construed.
A different lady asks if I’ve filled out my page, I lie and say that I have.
I hate myself for that. But I’ve been in the field for too long and my Colonel is nowhere to be seen, nor is my adopted Indian man.
I’ve been careless and lost track of my comrades.
So, I observe.
Through the clamour, a woman’s body-language stands-out to me.
She is attentive to her suitors, but her eyes are sad, she doesn’t want to be here. I notice the movement of her head when she emphasises a point and the relaxation of her shoulders when conversing with the group of friends she retreats with. I notice her glossy black hair and the way she clutches her handbag when walking between the bar and her table. I notice her displeasure in the food she has ordered for dinner.
She is perfect and I won’t approach her.
What good is an introduction when shouted? How can anything grow from such a painful thing?
It’s too much noise and too many people for anything to be well-construed.
A different lady asks if I’ve filled out my page, I lie and say that I have.
I hate myself for that. But I’ve been in the field for too long and my Colonel is nowhere to be seen, nor is my adopted Indian man.
I’ve been careless and lost track of my comrades.
Both of you, Dance Like You Want to Win!
I find them together, sitting at a table half-way out the door.
Crest-fallen.
It’s been at least two hours, and he has only spoken with three other participants.
My Colonel has a similar score. She bemoans the state of the boys in attendance, that there is a stark absence of men.
The music is loud; the shouting people add to the ruckus and a clarity presents itself to me as I sit down to join them.
She goes on to whine that an event in Pretoria was smaller and yielded better results.
The music is loud as I remove my coat.
My Indian man chimes in that he might be leaving soon.
The music is loud, and the people shout and there is something I have to do.
I rise and extend my hand to the woman who picked me to sit with.
“Colonel, will you dance with me?”
The coldness of the affair thaws as she smiles like when we first met.
“Yes.”
The dance floor is empty.
The line cooks with nothing to do look on bemused. The people, marking ticks and crosses on a page while praying that this won’t be the story they tell their children, look up to witness our entry.
We jive and holler like a patient learning to walk again.
She tells me to twirl her, and I do, but when she lands close to me, I don’t know where to place my hands.
I’m a boy too.
We dance together and then around one another and together again.
We don’t know what we’re doing but I believe it’s called being human.
She laughs and I settle to wrap my arm around her shoulder while bad-mouthing all the men who were cowards for not approaching.
We return, a trio once more and now with a new mission.
Crest-fallen.
It’s been at least two hours, and he has only spoken with three other participants.
My Colonel has a similar score. She bemoans the state of the boys in attendance, that there is a stark absence of men.
The music is loud; the shouting people add to the ruckus and a clarity presents itself to me as I sit down to join them.
She goes on to whine that an event in Pretoria was smaller and yielded better results.
The music is loud as I remove my coat.
My Indian man chimes in that he might be leaving soon.
The music is loud, and the people shout and there is something I have to do.
I rise and extend my hand to the woman who picked me to sit with.
“Colonel, will you dance with me?”
The coldness of the affair thaws as she smiles like when we first met.
“Yes.”
The dance floor is empty.
The line cooks with nothing to do look on bemused. The people, marking ticks and crosses on a page while praying that this won’t be the story they tell their children, look up to witness our entry.
We jive and holler like a patient learning to walk again.
She tells me to twirl her, and I do, but when she lands close to me, I don’t know where to place my hands.
I’m a boy too.
We dance together and then around one another and together again.
We don’t know what we’re doing but I believe it’s called being human.
She laughs and I settle to wrap my arm around her shoulder while bad-mouthing all the men who were cowards for not approaching.
We return, a trio once more and now with a new mission.
Men Wanted.
Our second wind is short-lived.
My Indian man does well but he bows out before the work is fully finished.
I bid him farewell before returning to grab who I can while still being decerning. A fat man who is well groomed and confident of posture just meets my requirements and I send him her way.
My Colonel deserves to be chosen.
They talk for some time before the next offering and the next and the next and the charade turns dreary.
We laze on a couch together and she tells me that she’ll be leaving soon.
I offer to walk her to her car, and she doesn’t protest.
My Indian man does well but he bows out before the work is fully finished.
I bid him farewell before returning to grab who I can while still being decerning. A fat man who is well groomed and confident of posture just meets my requirements and I send him her way.
My Colonel deserves to be chosen.
They talk for some time before the next offering and the next and the next and the charade turns dreary.
We laze on a couch together and she tells me that she’ll be leaving soon.
I offer to walk her to her car, and she doesn’t protest.
Velleity.
It’s a long walk by parking lot standards.
The air is cold, but it washes us of cigarette smoke and the sillage of regret.
I welcome the discomfort.
I want to hold her hand. I’ve always struggled to let go when things come to an end. But we walk apart and in silence—we’ve lost the context in which we could understand each other.
I stand guard as she pays for her ticket. Her open purse allows a glimpse of bank cards and identification documents, a couple ten rand notes and a driver’s license. She’s twelve years older than me; we’re at different stages of our lives.
We make it to the car, and I thank her for the evening.
I offer that I might see her again.
She says it’s not likely and that it would be best for me to take down her number. She lowers herself into the car without saying anything further.
I agree, while making no move to retrieve my cell phone.
I wish her safe travels before closing the door and under my breath a prayer that she may dance with a man who chooses her from the beginning.
We have no future, just an uncomfortable present.
The air is cold, but it washes us of cigarette smoke and the sillage of regret.
I welcome the discomfort.
I want to hold her hand. I’ve always struggled to let go when things come to an end. But we walk apart and in silence—we’ve lost the context in which we could understand each other.
I stand guard as she pays for her ticket. Her open purse allows a glimpse of bank cards and identification documents, a couple ten rand notes and a driver’s license. She’s twelve years older than me; we’re at different stages of our lives.
We make it to the car, and I thank her for the evening.
I offer that I might see her again.
She says it’s not likely and that it would be best for me to take down her number. She lowers herself into the car without saying anything further.
I agree, while making no move to retrieve my cell phone.
I wish her safe travels before closing the door and under my breath a prayer that she may dance with a man who chooses her from the beginning.
We have no future, just an uncomfortable present.
Solivagant.
I neglect to return to the evening’s affairs.
The game was over anyway.
And I learnt nothing new from having played.
You can be staring down twenty-six or forty and be the same person from when you were twelve.
You can live inside a fantasy till reality takes your head and no one will remember you the way you imagined yourself.
You can wait for your lover or go out and attempt to find them and neither option can guarantee a happy ending. Some people are born to wrestle.
You can wait to be chosen to only ever dance off-beat.
You can blame women, and you can blame men, you can blame economic systems and poor timing and when you are finished you still have to reconcile with the only thing you have any power over.
Yourself.
I can romanticize my depression and write commentary on how the world is ending.
But I can’t be surprised that when faced with what my heart desires I am unable to even approach them.
6/10 was a decent evening. Not a fan of the venue but Curated Connections has plenty of events all around Cape Town, Pretoria and of course, Joburg. It’s not ideal, but letting people socialise within a preset context removes a lot of the guess work, and that has its utility.
The game was over anyway.
And I learnt nothing new from having played.
You can be staring down twenty-six or forty and be the same person from when you were twelve.
You can live inside a fantasy till reality takes your head and no one will remember you the way you imagined yourself.
You can wait for your lover or go out and attempt to find them and neither option can guarantee a happy ending. Some people are born to wrestle.
You can wait to be chosen to only ever dance off-beat.
You can blame women, and you can blame men, you can blame economic systems and poor timing and when you are finished you still have to reconcile with the only thing you have any power over.
Yourself.
I can romanticize my depression and write commentary on how the world is ending.
But I can’t be surprised that when faced with what my heart desires I am unable to even approach them.
6/10 was a decent evening. Not a fan of the venue but Curated Connections has plenty of events all around Cape Town, Pretoria and of course, Joburg. It’s not ideal, but letting people socialise within a preset context removes a lot of the guess work, and that has its utility.