Trash Or Treasure Parties Are The Horrifying New Dating Trend — And You May Have Attended One
Why would you want someone else's leftovers?
adriaticfoto/ Shutterstock S Social Concierge is a private and very exclusive dating club in London.
The club tried its hand at making it big in the States by hosting a Trash or Treasure party called "Just Friends."
What is a Trash or Treasure party? Allow me.
It's where each person attending brings another member of the opposite sex, someone they know but aren't dating.
It's a familiar concept, one that was a lot more popular in the '90s than it is now. I have never been to one, but I am 99% certain I have watched sitcoms where these types of parties are factored into the plot, usually when the woman who brought her friend to the party realizes that they are actually madly in love.
I'm not sure how I feel about this entirely so let's talk it out together, and by talk it out together I mean, I'm going to write down my thoughts as they occur and you're then going to read them and then, hopefully, we will reach some sort of conclusive take on the concept of Trash to Treasure dating.
On the one hand, I definitely do have male friends and co-workers who I would love to set up on dates.
That said, there are usually reasons why I'm not dating those people. If there aren't real dealbreakers that would make me wary of introducing them to other women, then the men in question have either had feelings for me, or I have had feelings for them.
Do we move past these feelings? Sure, but that doesn't mean I'm BUSTING to introduce them to a room full of sexy strangers.
Taking a guy to an event like this a little bit feels like the proverbial lady protesting too much. "I don't like you, in fact, I don't like you SO much I'm going to bring you to a party and introduce you to other women to date!"
All of that said, maybe it isn't a bad gimmick after all. I mean, once you get past the fear that every guy in the room is involved in some sort of Jim and Pam from The Office will-they won't-they style romance.
I can't with this.
I tried, but I can't. In addition to all of the other reasons I listed above, you're calling someone in your life trash! "He's garbage to me, but maybe YOU love garbage!"
People aren't commodities.
I understand that dating is hard, that meeting people and making connections is hard, sure! When you see a new and potentially promising way to take out the guesswork I can see why it would be appealing.
But frankly, if a man is trash, I want to figure that out on my own without worrying that emotional baggage in his life is there at the bar having a cocktail and watching us like a hawk while she pretends to think Jake from accounting with halitosis is just fascinating.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is an editor, freelance writer, former Senior Staff Writer for YourTango, and the former Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek. Her bylines have appeared in Fatherly, Gizmodo, Yahoo Life, Jezebel, Apartment Therapy, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, SheKnows, and many others.