...... is an elegant spelling mistake.
It crops up on every page of the website of a new (to me anyway) dating service in town ~ Table for 2 - Jakarta.
A lot of time and effort has gone into this website. After all, Table for 2 is the premier dating service for busy working professionals and entrepreneurs who have been too busy to find romance.
How It Does Work
Clients are pre-screened by dating consultants assessing their compatibility, to identify potential matches among the clientele. After a potential match is established, Table for 2's dating consultants arrange the clients' lunch or dinner date at an affiliated restaurant and later follow up with the client to evaluate the date, thus continuously improving the client's dating criteria.
new beginnings to true love and ......... Yes, yes .... and what??
This got me to thinking about my dating criteria. Of course, and in case 'Er Indoors gets to read this, this is all now in the past. Nearly all of my dates have been circumstantial, a date after a meeting, a meeting after a meeting as it were. There have been friends of friends and blind dates. The latter were the best as they couldn't see me.
A NSFW digression here.
Some 15 years ago, we went to a wedding in Sukabumi, a town to the southeast of Jakarta. It was a weekend do and we were put up in a hotel. Each room had large mirrors, on all four walls and the ceiling. This was really a shame because I can't see without my glasses, and I take them off in bed.
Anyway, as I was about to say before I interrupted myself, I was once a member of Operation Dateline (NB. NOT this one!), a very early computer dating operation in London. Insofar as initial flirting went, with the exchange of letters describing how we would walk barefoot in the park and other lovey-dovey stuff, it was fine and a few dates were arranged.
There was one girl who was appalled at my choice of a coffee bar, Le Macabre which had coffin lids as table tops, in Soho, the Blok M of London. Then there was another lass who was hoping I'd join her in a mud bath; she had it ready and I fled. And then there was the lass who went off and married my flatmate. There's no accounting for taste.
Which got me wondering, too, about Table for 2's "affiliated restaurants". I checked to see if there are any serving vegetarian fodder.
There are Japanese ~ serving original Okinawan Food creatively prepared by Japanese Chef, simply perfect for those who are aurally sophisticated. (Eh?)
And Thai ~ one of the city's most extravagant Thai restaurants ... offers a glimpse of savoring exquisite Thai cuisine in a defining contemporary ambiance." (Just a glimpse? What if you're both hungry?)
And French Cuisine which has set the standard of high quality service and presentation, renowned and acclaimed throughout world as origin of the food and beverage industry in europe. (Quite.)
But no Indian, which means that I wouldn't want a date arranged by Table for 2.
let us be the one to open your ......... wallet?
And I won't be signing up in order to get my discount card, for that is what this is. The Dating Service is surely secondary to getting members who'll be paying over the odds for their membership in order to get 10 or 15% discounts for ultra-expensive meals, beauty treatments and luxury goods.
I can't see the romance in shopping. Music, however, is the food of love so if you're looking for somewhere to take your date, consider this. JakJazz is back and is stepping up a gear and will re-launch its 8th edition and expand its high calibre image, therefore extending the festival's position as a one-of-a-kind jazz festival.
Next weekend, the 24th, 25th and 25th November, at Istora Senayan in Central Jakarta (a good venue), will be your chance to swoon to valium jazzers Phil Perry and Ernie Watts, classy diva Salena Jones, noted Indonesian jazzers such as Indra Lesmana, Bubi Chen, Kiboud Maulana and Luluk Purwanto, and lots of Japanese musicians I haven't heard of, except one - Kazumi Watanabe.The first time I saw him, at JakJazz '88 when it was held at Ancol, his storming electric guitar blew us away. Who is this guy? we asked ourselves as we stood rooted to the spot, gobs agape. Backed with drums and acoustic double-bass, his dynamic invention was far beyond the smooch crooning of Phil Perry who was also there.
Unfortunately, I'll miss this year's gigs: I've got a date. But I really do hope the weekend will demonstrate that there is a demand for live music. Be there and let me know what I'll have missed.
