Palm Beach.

Let’s see - I’ve been here for about 4 months now and here’s my take. At first glance it appears to be a little paradise. But after further investigation Palm Beach county looks pretty much like Greater Birmingham. Oh of course Palm Beach has the tropical atmosphere and more than it’s share of multi=millionaires and mansions, which Birmingham surely doesn’t lack, and a lot more of a nightlife than my hometown but the poverty seems more rampant on the outskirts of the more glamorous side of town. There is this misconception that West Palm Beach is all ghetto and poverty-stricken when the case is actually the opposite. Yes West Palm has it’s rough side but to my surprise a lot of middle class to upper middle class people live in the area but more on West Palm later.

The social scene is every bit as materialistic as Miami where I used to live several years ago just not quite as on a condensed metropolitan scale as Miami. So once again I’m submerged in a densely populated area with no friends or relatives left alone to fend for myself, so I tried a dating service as a first step to testing out the atmosphere.  For the sake of legality I’ll just call the dating service “South Florida Friends”. While grocery shopping I spotted the advertisement for southfloridafriends.com  and decided to check out the website. Upon returning home I fired up the desktop and started my search. I viewed the site and at first it seemed like an interesting proposition until I peeped their schedule of events. All of the events listed sounded very appealing, however, there was no time or location posted - right then and there I smelled a rat. Nevertheless, I called the number advertised to investigate further.

A very friendly, sexy voice gave me directions to the South Florida Friends office and off I went. When I reached my destination another red flag popped up - the office was located in one of those shadey office parks tucked back in the corner. Okay, so I’m sitting in the office waiting to be interviewed by this tall, slim white chick with a face like Daryl Hannah, dirty blonde hair and wearing chic tight jeans,  and a low cut floral blouse that revealed her pale, heavily freakled, Julia Roberts cleavage. I’m checking out this whole office and my sixth sense is tingling -  there’s more to this than a 50 buck fee, a handshake and a brochure. This Daryl Hannah slash Sheryl Crowesque salesperson whom I’ll call “Lydia” proceeds to tell me about all the wonderful benefits of being a member of this “exclusive club”, which also sent up a red flag. As she continues her pitch about all the fabulous vacations I can take around the world at rock bottom prices I’m thinking to myself, yeah but what about the fee? She goes on and on about assuring me the members would all be professionals on my level and thereby making my selection of an eligible woman would be much easier - yeah but what about the fee? So she finally pulled out this chart - the lowest rate being $1500 and the “Gold Package” being $3500. Of course I had a look on my face like I was all cool with the fee but I’m laughing my ass off on the inside.

I proceed to kindly reject her offer saying, “I’m not desperate nor do I lack in resourcefulness to effectively socialize and network.” But the point was I’m not going to drop between 1500 to 4000 dollars to mingle with a bunch of elitist nobs and still  risk having my time as well as money wasted. So, Lydia proceeds to press on with her pitch and try to reel me back in by saying, “I don’t see your point in turning down this offer, Romulus.” The point is I could spend 3500 bucks in addition to the 20 to 100 bucks a pop to attend these social events and I could very well end up meeting the love of my life at Wal-mart or Wal-greens. “Yeah but you wouldn’t be picking from a pre-screened selection of people.” She says and yadda, yadda, yadda. If I went the traditional route of trail and error and failed 50 times at meeting a desirable woman out in the unscreened public I still wouldn’t have spent anywhere near 1500 dollars or even 500 dollars in doing so. Next stop: Speed Dating.

 I had tried speed dating before and got overwhelming success in Alabama. If I could score with a room full of conservative, small town white women in Alabama surely I would be a smashing success in such a liberal, progressive area like South Florida…or so I thought. See, I don’t consider myself to be some kind of supermodel or anything like that. I think I’m a pretty handsome guy but I have that Denzel Washington type charisma that transcends race and makes the ladies melt in their shoes. So, I’m at this speed dating event - 9 women and 9 guys - and it jumps off. It was a pretty broad selection of women. A Peruvian, a Parisian, an East Indian, a Trinidadian and five other white women from different states. They all seemed interested but the true test would be who would pick me after the event was over. Not one single female chose me. Could it have been because I was the only black guy there? Could it been because I told the truth and said I was a graphic designer instead of saying I was a shipping tycoon or a doctor or lawyer with a flourishing private practice? It was shocking - not even the homely, pale-faced, mild-mannered divorcee with three kids chose me. Could it have been racism? Could it have been materialism? Who cares?

My personal opinion of the deal was these chicks were obviously looking for money. They couldn’t really answer my questions with genuine answers, they really didn’t know what they wanted in a man or what to look for in a man other than the obvious generic reasons. Only two of them expressed themselves around the purpose of money with the old superficial questions of “What is your profession?” and “Where do you live?” When the response of graphic designer came out I could obviously tell the conversation switched from the woman talking to me to talking through me. No big deal. It was an interesting experience. Moving right along.

Anyways, after another month of being here and some strategic networking I’ve dated as many women on my own time as I met at the speed dating event. I’ve narrowed my selection down to A Jamaican sister with a body like a video vixen, a Puerto-Rican that looks like Paula Abdul, a Dominican, a Colombian and a white lady from Colorado that looks like Farrah Fawcett with a short haircut. Who says I ain’t got it? Okay, back to the economic scene of the area. The cost of living as well as the pitiful housing market is killing the average joe down here. People can’t sell their homes at a profit so they rent them out while they live in a condo, which is the way to go down here. I don’t even see the purpose in owning a home in South Florida with all the hurricane damage, erosion, water shortages and constant building and expanding of roads and highway systems.

Cityplace seems to be the hottest spot in the area otherwise I don’t see anything all that appealing about Palm Beach other than the tropical climate and the beach. Nevertheless, I love South Florida and the best part about living in this area is I’m only 40 miles away from Miami. Having lived in Birmingham and havng to drive all the way to Atlanta (150 miles away) for any considerable nightlife I consider a 40 mile drive to be a skip, hop, and a jump. I’ll get more in depth at a later time but for now I’m going to enjoy the rest of my weekend.

Comments

[zen]

Hey, stop running those females and update this blog!!!!! WTF :-)

[Romulus Burnett]

Yes sir, Mr. Zen, sir!