Adventures with a Dating Agency

I received a call from DL, the dating agency that was quite diligent in chasing me before I turned down their original dating package.

"Hi, this is W* from DL*. We'd like to invite you down to our cosy Christmas dinner of 8 pax on..."

I was a bit confused when W called me up to invite me to a dinner and the first thought that came to mind was they'd hit me with the charges once I'd committed to coming. I tried to sound non-committal. "Hmm...OK..."

"That will be $399.00 for our one off membership. When will you be coming down to confirm your place?"

There it was. I tried to hedge off, "I have to check my schedule. I can't confirm with you."

"Will you be able to confirm with me on X? Or maybe Y?"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'd have to think about it. And the answer would probably be no. After all, $399 could probably get me a Fendi handbag I saw on sale some time ago, a nice dress or two, 3 nice shirts or 4 bottles of decent quality poison of the alcoholic variety. There's no way for me to know if the alternative use of $399 would eventuate into anything significant from a sample size of 4 men. The previous time they spoke to me, they had approximately 100 men on their Rolodex. What's the probability of finding 4 matches out of a 100? "Why don't you just drop me an e-mail and I'll let you know. It's really inconvenient for me to check now."

So I've just taken the low road by committing to a more impersonal method of rejecting later. Again.

* All names and acronyms are kept fictitious for privacy reasons.