Living in Star City has prepared Curtis to deal with a lot of bullshit and a lot of crises, but he's never had to deal with meterological shit on this level, before. Usually, when shit got real where he was from, it took the form of assassin cults, or nukes, or supersoldiers, or even aliens. Compared to all that, a storm sounds pretty tame. But there are sandbags to be carried, and he might as well pitch in. So Curtis rolls up his sleeves and volunteers to help storm-proof the river.

To say that Curtis is not exactly in a romantic place right now in his life would be putting it mildly. It was his romantic troubles that had gotten him kidnapped and brought to this weird world in the first place. So when he first sees those flyers go up for a dozen different activities for couples, he scoffs. It's like the universe is going out of its way to pour salt in the wound. He tries to occupy his time in other ways, to ignore the events and all the paired-off people participating in them.

But eventually, out of boredom, anger, and quasi-masochism, he finds his steps leading him to the mall courtyard, where the speed dating fiasco appears to be taking place. Can't hurt to try, right? There's probably someone else there like him - someone who has no interest in any sort of actual romance but who is desperate to kill time. He'll be open about his situation, find someone in a similarly pragmatic mood, and they'll figure things out from there. Not like Paul's going to find out. (Not like Paul would give a shit, even if he did).

so on a scale of one to ten how certain are we this place isn't some kind of:

a) drug-induced mass hallucination
b) underground bunker set up by a supervillain
c) computer-simulated dream reality like in the matrix