5280’s Single in the City Party.

While I didn’t see any producers from The Bachelor, who were rumored to be in attendance, I did see, say, 1,000 young (and old, and middle-aged) men and women, all looking fine, all actively hunting down phone numbers. Having never been to a singles event before, I found it simultaneously embarrassing and liberating. It was great to be asked out by women, who weren’t at all shy about it.

I ran into a bunch of girl dash friends at the party, and when I asked ’em what the hell they were doing at a singles event by choice, all of them frankly said, “Yah, I’m here to get some phone numbers, meet some men.” Now, I had to be there, and had brought along an Entourage of great friends to wingman and wingwoman me…but it turns out I didn’t have to do anything besides wear a corsage, which I didn’t do, and a VIP red bracelet that got me free drinks, which I did. (Of course, the VIP bar was so popular, it took 20 minutes to get a drink, with boys and girls, ladies and not-so-gentlemen pushing and butting in line, including yours truly, the whole time).

Fortunately, I’d started out the night with fellow Most Eligible Bachelor(ette) Esther Kang and our respective entourages at Forest Room Five, which she loves, and which I’d never visited. Now, I think I have good taste (we all highly approve of our own taste, of course), but this place is way beyond good taste. If I were a multikajillionaire I’d hire them to outfit my loft studio. So. Cool. Like a bar club out of the pages of  Wallpaper. 

After a few drinks, and running into four people I knew, which made this hippie cowboy feel nicely at home in the Big City, we all hopped to the 5280 Single in the City party.

The scene was thus: valet parking, big entrance, hundreds upon hundreds of people, all dressed to the nines, couches, coffee tables in clusters, vast floor space for dancing below a big stage, lit up banners, nearly naked stage dancers (and a nearly naked aerialist who gave new meaning to the word butt-crack), various lines for drinks at bars stationed in various corners…and all of it set in a vast warehouse-like space (Exdo).

Strangely, the otherwise-brilliant 5280 party featured the Eurotrashiest music this side of Auto-Tune—it must’ve been intentionally ironic, I kept thinking, as me and my friends and their friends took over about 20 square feet of the dance floor and all piled our coats and purses in the middle, like a bonfire. It was fun dancing, it always is, but after awhile it got to be heavy lifting. At one point I turned to my Brit friend Lisa and said “How do you dance to this song, it’s so bad!,” and she said, “I just keep reminding myself it’s free exercise!,” and I shouted back, over the mechanized voice-laden douchefest electronica “but how do you look happy when you do it!?” and she just took her hand and shoved up her cheeks in a fake smile. Mile highlarious.

Strangely, one of the highlights of the night were the huge buckets of…yogurt-covered pretzels and raisins. The other highlight of the night was driving a month-or-two-long love interest back to her place, getting in a fight along the way, and leaving without so much as a kiss.

Now that’s the life of Boulder’s Most Eligible Bachelor.

Above: Duzer does 5280 Single in the City Party. All non-blurry photos by Ryan Van Duzer (We’ll post more photos as we get ’em—if you took any & wanna share, just email ’em in to [email protected]). 

With huge thanks to Lisa, Peggy, Duzer, Sandja (who made it all possible when she nominated me for 5280’s Single thing), Adriane—and to Julie Dugdale and all the lovely folks at 5280, who must still be busy counting the hundies after that huuuge party. It was an honor, and a pleasure.