Speeding through the first step?

Topic: Speed-dating: A little like entering the great wild?
Posted by: Aly Walansky

A friend and I (actually the friend I wrote about last week), decided to try our luck at the mystical world that is speed-dating last night.

If any of you are unfamiliar (and missed the Sex and the City episode devoted to it), you take turns telling the person across the table all the meaningful details about yourself, hoping that (if they are not too terribly strange) you might click enough to want to have a full date. You’ve got 3 minutes. Then a gong shrills, and your next date appears. Repeat. 40 times. If you are lucky, you may get a pee break.

We are talking serious marathon dating.

In the SATC plot, Miranda didn’t do well at all. Many people don’t - and then you ask yourself, do you really want to put yourself through 40 bad dates in one evening? Isn’t ONE enough?

As anyone who’s ever been single knows … when it rains it pours. Raining men, that is! We’ve all been there, suffering through a long dry spell - and then all at once, the heavens open up and send us a downpour of bow-wrapped manhood! You meet several hot dating prospects within a couple of weeks and have to juggle a bunch of guys at once. That is exactly what the scene is at speed dating, except it’s all blind dates, and you are obligated to be nice (for 3 minutes), before moving on.

Depending on the locale (I ended up at a downtown lounge complete with video arcades, stiff drinks and free Cosi on premesis), participants take their seats on sofas or long narrow bar tables. When the gong blows, your first 3-minute date has begun. The gong will blow every three minutes and the men get up and move to the next date. If you like the guy you’re talking to, you write his name on your score card and circle ‘Yes’. If you don’t want to see him again, you circle ‘No’. When the event is over, you enter in your own responses on the website. Everyone’s Yes’s and No’s are calculated, and if you “match” with a guy – meaning you said yes to him and he said yes to you, you receive each other’s email addresses. The next step is up to you! Very often the event will be centered around certain age groups or fields (say, creative people).

Sounds great, in theory - but all just a little intense for the average shy single. And so, the next day, it all seems a little like a whirlwind - friends attending together, one disappointed because the other got more matches than she did, and the girl who got lots of matches feeling somewhat confused...honestly not able to at this point pinpoint one guy against the other in her memory's annals.

So, I was wondering, what all of you thought of this dating "method". Is there a way to best make it work for you?

Comments

[soulFuse]

Speed dating is similar to online dating, except you are given limited information from the individual during the 3 minutes. Online dating typically provides you with more information via their profile. If you like some one's profile you can message them, back and forth till you feel you want to meet them in person.

[Speed Dating NYC]

I think speed dating is fun but I'm pretty sure I will find my second half during a speeddate :) I'm to old fashioned for that adn I don't believe in love at first sight!

[Chris]

I have to agree with Jess. Speed dating is fun and exciting, but it is also very confusing. We humans are not designed to speed through life. The secret to relationships is paying attention to the other person and really, really listening them. Speed dating is just crazy.

[Chris]

I wanted to add, that it seems our culture really is anti-relationship. What ever happened to leisurely dances where men and women could mix with any number of prospective partners? Relationships, dating, marriage and divorce have all become industries motivated by profit. It's cheaper and easier and more profitable to crowd people into dark rooms with loud music and mind altering substances than to teach them how to interact and actually learn about one another. We've also become a culture of lies and not relationship can survive on lies.

[John Gillispie]

Have a listen to the humorous way I met and fell in love with my wife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_runmXmya-Y

[Loria4]

I learned the hard way about love i met a guy online we had planed to be together im scaerd of love i knew i had his heart i will regret never knowing what might have been if u love tell them give it a chance never knowing will tear u up inside

[Karl]

I feel that anything speedy lacks the quality required to really build a solid foundation. Everything in the world now is faster faster. Sometimes to get a real solid result, you need to put the time in. Maybe I am wrong. Would love to hear feedback... Slow or fast?

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