#hackcancer

It’s another post from Dating for Science contributor, Matthew P.! I'm sitting on a couch, looking about. Beautiful people dressed in white are everywhere, glowing, radiant, with just lovely teeth. A wonderfully built woman walks by in a gloriously skimpy outfit and angel wings. Elvis strolls by on stilts. I hear the dulcet tones of a Daft Punk remix all around me. A man sees my drink is empty and fills me up from the VIP bottle service table in front of me. I want to be here forever, I think. I want to live in this place. A woman approaches me and asks how I wound up here. I open my mouth to reply, and suddenly realize that I’m incredibly drunk. Remembering how I got here... that's going to take me more than a moment.

  I received an e-mail a few weeks ago from the dating app MyCuteFriend. Partnering with the Hack_Cancer organization, they'd sponsored an upcoming "White Party" at the W Hotel in San Francisco. The e-mail granted me a code for a free ticket and suggested wearing all white clothing... "cocktail whites" as they are apparently called. Recalling the uh.... success... of attending the Hinge SF Launch Party, I decided, what the hell, white party it is.

  The night of the event, I cobble together an outfit that looks like it should be worn to a 50's Polo match, complete with sweater tied about my shoulders and horn-rimmed glasses to match. I drink a drink or two, have a little caffeine, brush my teeth, and I'm ready.

Upon arriving at the W Hotel, I'm given a wristband and ushered up into a hip blue and pink lit bar area. I commandeer a number of the free champagne cocktail drinks and stand at a gorgeous bar that cycles luminescent from rainbow LEDs embedded within it. As I watch people file in, I notice something peculiar... these people are gorgeous... really gorgeous. I, in fact, see no people of my ilk in attendance (scruffy, unique-featured, ironic outfitted types who have a record collection at home but no record player.) No, these are models and handsome people. These are people who "summer" in places. I down my champagne, signal to the bartender, and order a glass of the W Hotel's best confidence booster.

Mingling now, I pass a table flanked by gorgeous women dressed as angels. They're selling glow sticks and little styrofoam LED batons. I pause to think on how this all a very strange way to 'hack cancer'... but... whatever.

  I find a dance floor and some friends and we make merry. Wiggling our hips to "This is How We Do It" suddenly feels... right... and the confidence is kicking in. Maybe I belong here. Maybe I'm one of the beautiful people. Then I hear a fellow admonishing another fellow, saying, "This isn't San Jose, you don't just ask people where they work!" And I feel out of place again, and need another cocktail.

  My company and I find our way to a larger dance floor, where all the people are dancing. We work our way into the crowd and bust some moves. But looking around, it's just too much. These people are just too polished, too successful. I'm just a drunk amongst them, looking like a retro croquet player, trying my best to appear like I belong there shimmying to the 90's hits. Oh well, I think. Perhaps I should go. Public transit is still running. I could catch the sad train back home to my studio apartment, maybe catch up on a couple episodes of Breaking Bad. I'm in the third season, and it's just starting to get good. I just saw the one where Walter...

  And then, suddenly, a hand emerges through the crowd grabbing my sweater and pulling me along. I grab my friend Levi's arm, and we're pulled like a worming snake through the throngs of dancers. Once out of them, I see that it's my friend Kate (creator of Dating For Science) who has grabbed us, and is ushering us toward a VIP section. There, at a table, upon which a plethora of bottle service is laid out, I'm introduced as a contributor to Dating For Science to Steve Chen, co-founder of MyCuteFriend -- the app that brought me here. He shakes my hand and pours me a strong vodka orange-juice, saying I'm welcome to hang out at the table.

And I find myself sitting on a couch, in the VIP section, being looked at by the beautiful passersby. Head cloudy in a drinking haze, I feel I've arrived. Maybe I'll summer in St. Bart's next year. Take up sailing. Steve Chen gentlemanly fills my empty glass for me, and a woman approaches me asking how I wound up here at the White Party at the W Hotel in San Francisco. I take a moment to consider this, and then, in a surely droop eyed drunken slur, manage to smile and assure her, "Oh, I'm supposed to be here."