💖 Sexico City Update 🌃

I went on a live blind-dating show. Here's what happened...

This is Part 2 of an adventure which started last Friday after I sent out my newsletter.

Pardon the photo quality, it looks like the 90s.

I paced back and forth in my apartment. The lure of the upcoming evening loomed closer, and my nerves set in. I was about to do one of the most fun, random and also potentially embarrassing things in my entire life: that evening, I was going to be a contestant on a live, blind dating show, Sexico City, for their season finale. And all my friends, including some family friends visiting from out of town, would be there. 

Without my knowing, Sexico City had quickly become the talk of the town. Hosted by my friends Marko and Carmina, the show discusses love, weird sex kinks, awkward personality traits, and everything in between. Since getting a call from the producers that week, I had agreed to let myself be questioned in front of a live audience of 150 people. Time had unforgivingly ticked away, and now I had to be at the show in an hour. And I had no idea what to wear. 

I group-called two friends, threw on outfits, and panted down the phone as I sifted between crumpled chiffon tops and suits. 

“I’m panicking!” I cried.

“Which outfit makes you feel most confident?” my friend Andie shouted through the phone over my confusion.

“Hang on!” I replied.

I dove back into my closet and found my holy grail: my bold, bright, tropical, matching suit. I had bought it from “More Boutique,” a shop in my neighborhood that was filled to the brim with diamantes, fake jewels, hooker heels, and tiny miniskirts. But when I put this suit on, it somehow meant something far greater than tacky sequins. It meant confidence. It meant power. It meant being whoever I wanted to be. 

What happened in the next couple of hours was mostly a blur. After treating myself to sushi and mezcal, I found myself backstage in a well-lit dressing room at the theatre, along with my co-contestant. She was called Aja (watch her account of the show here), and I laughed with her over another beer, still trying and failing to loosen up and keep things cool. She helped me by testing me with some basic questions. 

“What type of man do you like?” she said. 

“O-Outdoorsy?” I said after a long pause. “Athletic. No, I like weird dudes. Dudes with tattoos. Weirdos.” 

“Okay,” she said, frowning a little. Clearly, I was about to bore the audience out of their minds. “Just try and say the stuff that’s specific. It’s more interesting.” 

“Got it,” I said. I held my breath, trying not to overwhelm myself with anxiety-ridden flashes into the future; I was about to go onstage with an audience of 150 people, blindfolded and being asked the same question and was sure to fail miserably. I held onto a copy of my book, determined to use it as a crutch to start the conversation if I had to. 

Then the producers came. They said hurriedly over their mics, 

“Tash, you’re up.” 

I gulped. This was my time to shine. I was blindfolded, and I tried not to trip over the stairs as Carmina led me out onto the stage. As I did, I felt the silent breaths of 150 people before me. I couldn’t see them. I could only hear. I tried to run through funny, interesting things I could say about myself. 

I’m from London. I’ve written a book. I studied Business Analytics. Data? What? Is that interesting? No, don’t mention that. 

“Welcome to our first contestant, Tash!” Carmina said. I heard the audience’s applause. I angled myself towards the noise. The room smelt like damp, industrial carpet, potato chips and beer. 

“What brings you to Sexico City?” Marko said.

“Well, I don’t use dating apps,” I explained, holding the mic at the bottom of my chin. “Because I’m in a 12-step program for internet addiction. I’ve swiped on probably 100,000 people in my life, and nothing’s worked for me.” 

“Who out there is addicted to their phones?” Carmina said. I couldn’t tell how many people in the audience, if any, raised their hands. A couple more increasingly personal questions followed. 

“Tash, in your application, you said you eat everything. Now, in Mexico, that means you eat everything, like brains, guts, and intestines. Is that what you meant when you wrote that?” 

“I do like to eat everything. Maybe not brains or guts, but Chapulines, I like. Still, I thought you were going in a different direction when you asked me that question,” I teased.

I told them about my book, my writing, and my most popular pieces, including “How To Achieve Orgasm Equality” and “I Pegged My Boyfriend.” 

“That’s one thing that’s a big dealbreaker for me in a relationship,” I said, “I need to date someone who doesn’t mind if I write the most intimate details of our sex life and put them on the internet. Anonymously, of course. Still, that narrows it down.”

Next, Marko led me into a side room and put some funky jazz music on while they introduced the guy on stage. I heard muffled voices and the audience’s laughter dampened by the theatre walls. Who was the person I was about to meet? Would I like them? What would he ask me? I tried not to fixate too much and just go with the flow. 

Marko came back soon after and brought me onto the stage. I sat down, still blindfolded. Except now, this guy was sitting next to me. Here’s the moment we technically met, but couldn’t yet see each other: 

“Tash, this is Andrzej, Polish for Andrew,” Carmina said, “Now, he’s really into spreadsheets when it comes to sex acts and different structures for non-monogamous relationships. Is that something you can get behind?”

“Sure,” I said, “I mean, I write a newsletter about my sex life, so I keep a list of everyone I’ve ever slept with so I can keep it for material one day.”

“You’re British?” the guy said, supposedly Andrzej, to me, though I couldn’t see him. “My ex-girlfriend was British. We broke up last year.”

My heart sank. I felt the air get punched out of my lungs as my mouth hung open in shock. I squirmed in my chair in discomfort. This was red flag number one. It was possibly the most annoying first thing that he could have said to me. With the turn of a sentence, I was fetishized and suffocated by the cloud of his ex that was now hanging in the room. 

“Oh, why don’t you tell me more about your English ex? Because that’s all I want to hear about. Jesus Christ,” I snapped sarcastically. 

He laughed. 

“Do you have any idea why we paired you two up?” Carmina said. “Do you remember what you answered on your application: how sexually adventurous are you on a scale from 1-10? Well, Tash, you put 8, and Andrzej, you put 9.”

I thought I had answered 5 to that question. But in any case, the conversation bounced between apps we use to describe our emotions, our interest in or experiences with threesomes, and my definition of pegging. At one point, he called me “Baby,” but I guess that was only because he felt nervous. I swore to myself that if we ever went on a date, that would be the first thing I’d tell him never to say again. 

“So, are you ready to vote?” Carmina said. 

“Yes,” I said. We were instructed to hold out our fists and proceed with a thumbs up or down. 

“Three! Two! One!” the audience chanted. I gave him a thumbs up. The audience erupted in applause. 

“Now, before you take your blindfolds off, what do you think happened?” Marko said. 

“I think we got a match!” I said excitedly.

“Are you ready to reveal?”

I took my blindfold off. The beaming lights of the theatre were blinding, and I wiped away what I assumed was smudged mascara under my eyes. 

I took a glance at the guy. He had a mustache. And glasses. And a grey tweed coat with white sneakers. He had dark brown hair that flopped a little on either side and a stubbled chin. 

“Now, Tash, you said in your application that you can tell whether you’re attracted to a man by looking at his hands. Take a look at Andrzej’s hands. What do you think?” 

I laughed. This was true. I’ll save this explanation for another piece, but I did look at them. He had a bit of dark hair along the back of his hands and his knuckles and good knuckle definition. 

“Yes, I like his hands.” The audience cheered again. 

So, I had a match! But just as I thought I was good to go, Carmina continued. 

“So, we want to bring someone else out on stage who we think you might like. Put your blindfolds back on.” She said this very vaguely. Andrzej and I followed her instructions. And for a brief moment of sheer terror, I thought they planned to bring out another girl. Was it going to be the beautiful co-contestant I had jammed with backstage before the show? Was that girl now my enemy who I would have to compete with to get Andrzej’s attention?  

“Tash, we have someone else here for you. Meet José,” Carmina said. I let out an audible sigh of relief. 

José, or so I learned from asking him, ran a marketing agency and lived in Polancho, a very nice neighborhood in Mexico City. 

“What are your favorite ways to pleasure a woman?” I asked him. 

“I love going down on women,” he said almost exactly on queue. 

“And hypothetically, how would you feel about dating a woman who is smarter, richer, and more successful than you?” I said. (I had rehearsed that question and held it in my mind over the last few days).

“I love a woman who is powerful and knows what she wants,” José said. 

Before I knew it, we were voting. 

“Three! Two! One!” the audience chanted again. I turned my thumb up, and boom! Another match! I took off my blindfold, and now the audience was laughing. Like Andrzej, José had a mustache, but his hair was blonde and curly. And he was tall. And he was hot, as well. 

I couldn’t believe my luck! Two matches? Our section of the show was over before I knew it. We were quickly shuffled off the stage. I bit my tongue and felt slightly nervous around them, unsure which one to talk to first. It was like being pulled in two different directions. After all the faff of Runner Boy and Girl Crush and all the times that I had tried and failed in love over the last couple of months, finally, I had two guys who were interested in me! My confidence had shot through the roof. I felt like a goddess among men. It felt good, for once, to be desired. 

After the show’s second half, which was very ratchet for other reasons, I met up with Andrzej and José and got their phone numbers. One promised to take me to Jamil, one of my favorite restaurants in my neighborhood, and the other promised to take me to Clara y Emma, a breakfast sandwich place that I’ve been dying to try. 

I’ll call the night a success, indeed. Reflecting on my experience, I’m starting to believe that we can be open to things turning out better than we could have imagined. Because sometimes that is the case.

Did I end up going on a date with either Andrzej or José? Stay tuned for the next installment of Misseducated to find out! 😍

Love,

Tash 🌞