Celebrating Pride is about much more than rainbow-themed flags and parties, but the diversity that those colors represent in our communities. Celebrating that diversity and love sometimes means just having an opportunity to find it.

"Thank you for coming to our queer speed Dating: Men Seeking Man Edition," said Sober One Six founder Andy Krumm, kicking off another in a series of events.

Everything from checking in to drinks, community and the idea that "love is love" is a sign you'll see a lot this month, but that doesn't make it easy to come by.

"So it was inspired by my own life. I, you know, obviously I'm in the dating world and it's not going great," Krumm noted.

He goes by the social media handle and moniker "Mr. Mocktail." Krumm and his sponsored speed dating are on a mission.

"We said, you know, there is straight speed dating out there already and there are so many straight spaces where people can go to meet somebody organically," Krumm explained. "There's really not that for the queer community. It's really just the online thing and all the apps and you know, as we all know, everyone knows that apps are not the best sometimes."

Apps and a late-night scene are not for everyone.

"Again, dating is stressful. Dating is anxiety-ridden, then dating is hard. So let's make the night enjoyable," said Krumm.

"It was like a year ago that we started talking about," said event host and local drag queen Damsel 'N Disdress. "We're going to get this rolling. Like I always said, don't judge a book by its cover. This could be a friend in front of you. Somebody that hires you or maybe something more."

In the works for some time, Disdress said she was more than willing to host these events one date at a time.

"It's only five minutes long. I think they're at first like, 'no, that's going to be long.' And as soon as that first one's done, I tell you, everybody is so into it," she said. "We give them even little questions to ask if they need more than just the question on the board for themselves. I always get my fun little answer to break the ice. I'm by all means, I'm a little wild in my answers, too."

The official title is "Queer Speed Dating," with what Krumm says is an emphasis on serving "the entire community alphabet." 

"We knew right off the bat that we were going to do a three-part series Queer Speed Dating: Man Seeking Men, Women Seeking Women and person seeking person," Krumm said.

Three events in, the feedback has been better than Krumm or Damsel could have hoped for, they said.

"I think like truly, even at that first event, somebody came up to me and just said, we don't have something like this for a woman and even like for men, there's a lot of that Grindr, Scruff, a lot of these apps that are out there for obviously premeditated meeting up and doing who-knows-what," Damsel added. "I had somebody come right up to me and they said, 'Please do this again.' "

Maybe dating or speed dating don't have the highest success rate, but the effort is more than appreciated by people just trying to find their person.

"I think that is a complexity of life, right? We give our all selves our own meaning and a lot of people want that person to go to at the end of the day, right?" Damsel said. "They want that partner. They want that love, person to wake up to, the person to go to bed to. And by all means, we're trying to give that avenue care truly for them from that speed dating series."

"At the end, when I see people exchanged numbers and Instagrams and they tell me afterward that they met a potential friend or even a potential partner, I literally get goosebumps and I always look at Damsel and I go ..." Krumm said, sighing joyfully for emphasis.