Hello from the Ottawa River: Mating in the Wild and Other
Diversions
On July 23 and 24 my friend Leslie and I went on a weekend
adventure: a learn-how-to-kayak weekend on the Ottawa River. We
had a great time, combining sports and relaxation on a weekend
away from the city.
As you know, wherever I am, I keep my eyes open for interesting
travel-related story ideas, and one story idea decidedly hit me
right in the face when we started socializing with the other
weekend vacationers. There was a group of 36 people who had all
come on a bus from Toronto to go rafting for the weekend, and
the trip was organized by a company called Meet Market
Adventures.
Their website says that Meet Market Adventures promotes singles
travel in Canada & the United States for busy singles seeking
adventurous singles travel vacations in Canada & the United
States. Apparently you can choose from over 30 adventures for
every interest in any month and enjoy the great outdoors with
hiking, biking, sky diving, skiing and lots of other activities.
At breakfast on Saturday morning we got to know a few people
from the group and they told us that this singles travel company
organizes everything from after-work get-togethers in local bars
to one or two-day weekend getaways, to week-long cruises and
other outings.
Well, I am solidly married woman, so I am not personally
concerned about finding a mate, but I have lots of single female
friends who are experiencing varying degrees of frustration with
the dating world and have tried everything from online dating
sites like Lava Life, to speed dating services, to more
personalized match-making services, with decidedly mixed success.
During the past weekend the hobby behavioural scientist in me
made an appearance and I tried to study the dynamics of this
group as much as possible. Friday night was a very rowdy night
on the campground and I can only conclude that this group
(probably the largest group on the campground) as well as some
other smaller groups took advantage of a weekend away from home
and really let loose. There was lots of hollering, loud music,
obviously plenty of drinking, and from the sounds of it, people
had a pretty entertaining time.
Saturday was the first day of rafting for these groups and since
we went kayaking instead of rafting, we didn't have any
interactions with the singles group during the day. In the
evening we headed down to a dock by the river front and bumped
into 6 members of the group: 4 males and 2 females who were
chatting in a very orderly way and taking in the sunset.
Everybody was very friendly and the ladies including us said
goodbye after about half an hour to head back to the campgrounds.
We had a nice chat with one of the ladies from the singles
travel group who said that she has participated in several major
adventure events organized by Meet Market Adventures and she
quite enjoyed them, although her dating results to date have
been mixed.
Once back at the campground we briefly joined our white water
kayaking colleagues at the campfire on the top campground,
designated for "quiet campers". Here totally opposite dynamics
were at play: these were 2 couples who had been together for 5
and 8 years respectively, and one of the couples just recently
found out that they are expecting a baby. Definitely no mating
help needed here...
After about 10 pm we joined Krista's "poise" performance on the
middle campground which was the home base of the Meet Market
travel group. Krista delivered 4 performances of poise, a
martial art used by the Maori people that involves two wires
with a wick at the end that is set on fire. It was an awesome
performance, and the guys in particular seemed to enjoy it since
Krista is not only talented, she's also a very cute-looking
young woman.
As the evening went on, one of the single travellers declared
himself the "leader of the tribe" and proceeded to play the
bongo drums that had accompanied Krista's performance earlier.
He certainly had an interesting concept of rhytthm and style. He
also delivered a graceful dance around the campfire in a towel
and for some reason kept referring to my friend Leslie and me
either as "the kayak girls" or "the sacrificial virgins" (yeah
right..), but overall the tribal leader turned out to be a lot
less obnoxious than he initially seemed to be. I was wondering
who was actually going to get voted off the campground by the
end of the night....;)
My friend and I had a great time socializing with a few people
from this group, jokes were flying the whole evening, we even
went down to the 3rd campground level (designated specifically
for noisy campers...) where the local residents had the biggest
bonfire on the go that you can imagine. It was one of those
evenings where you just feel giddy and laugh your head off, both
Leslie and I unaided by alcohol since neither one of us actually
drinks. Mind-altering drugs weren't necessary, since this was an
evening of pure unadulterated, spontaneous and harmless fun.
Overall the single travellers seemed to have a great time. There
definitely seemed to be more group socializing going on than
individual mating attempts, and overall it seemed to be a pretty
respectable way of connecting with other like-minded human
beings, male or female for that matter.
Leslie and I headed to bed at around 1 am, but many in the crowd
were still going strong. The next morning the group had another
day of rafting scheduled and some people had been on the go
until 6 am, when the cows made their wake-up calls and daily
inspection and paddie-dropping run through the campgrounds.
There were a few bed-heads and red eyes in the crowd and I
didn't envy these folks for having to go rafting on whitewater
for the whole day after a night of hearty partying.
The crowd returned at about 2 pm, and there were even more tired
faces in the group. They were safely packed into their bus,
ready to go home to Toronto, until next time. All I can say is
that an adventure outing for a group of single adventure
travellers seems like a pretty decent alternative for people who
want to make friends with shared interests. Whether it is a good
mating venue only time will tell.....