Adventures in Speed Dating

As I’ve mentioned before last summer I found myself writing for another website (sadly brief lived) on the topic of relationships. The idea behind my joining the site was rather brilliant. I would simply provide my perspective on the topic; that perspective being that of a 35 year old single male, never married, hell, never even engaged, who had just been dumped by his girlfriend and while not exactly as a result moved across the country to a town where he knew absolutely no one but the two events have somehow become intertwined. While my experience cannot be considered common it at least speaks to a rather standard occurrence: How in the world do you meet people in your thirties especially in a place where you are starting from ground zero? No friends, no support network, not even a bar where you are a regular. I had a list of activities that I would undertake and document to show just what it is like out there. Even though that website is no longer the idea was just too good to pass up.

Hence, I somehow found myself speed dating last week.

Now speed dating is one of those things that I had always heard about but had never even tried. Nor have I ever known anyone to try it. Just the very idea seemed like an evening of continued awkwardness along with the concern that the only people who would be at a speed dating event are people who need a speed dating event. It’s the Catch-22 behind all dating services; all of the people that you would actually want to date are obviously socially advanced to the point that they no longer require dating services. Your romantic life is one of those activities that is extremely difficult to outsource.

But after seeing an ad for one in Wilmington in a magazine I decided to sign up and see what could happen. I was a little apprehensive at the sign up process. First off, I had two options to choose from: one an event for 25 – 35 year olds and another for 45 – 55 year olds. This was quite concerning for me as I turn 36 in nine months and apparently at that point even the people who run speed dating think I’m such a huge loser they won’t allow me in the building for another ten years. Then there was the fact that you just signed up. Pretty much filled out a form and you were in. That and you had to pay a fee. Keep that in mind as you read the rest of this. I paid good money for this experience.

So the big day came and I made my way there after work. That was probably my first problem because by the time I get home from the office all I want to do is lie down on the couch and sleep for an hour. All I do all day is look at numbers so it takes me a while to switch off that brain and get the social interaction part of my personality functioning. It’s tough to get to know someone when part of your brain is still writing excel formulas.

The event was being held on the second floor of a bar. To reach the second floor (and I swear I am not making this up) you had to climb up what for all intensive purposes appeared to be a fire escape with a small little banner on it promoting the speed dating event. It made the whole event seem so illicit and back alley, like I was going to have to perform a special knock and give a password to be let in the door. Also, there is nothing like climbing a fire escape in the middle of January and looking out at the city to make you wonder just how horrible your social life has become that this is now considered to be an acceptable option.

I get enough courage to enter and sign in, happy that I timed it so that I wouldn’t be the first one there, and make my way to the bar. Now one would think that if I had paid money to be at a singles’ event I would make a concerted effort to, you know, talk to people. Of course, if I told you that I had the option of a) talking to the random stranger to my left and b) watching a random Big Ten basketball game on the television set most of you would rightly assume that I would take a much greater interest in Ohio State than anyone around me. Now I didn’t just sit there silently. I did try to make small talk and crack jokes but in essence I did what I always do when I’m in a new social situation. I sit back and observe. This puts me at ease but sucks in terms of first impressions.

Then it was time for the speed dating to begin. I’ll go over the ground rules now. The women are all given specific numbers and locations to sit. The men are also numbered and we are told where we shall sit to begin. All parties are given scorecards (there is no other way to describe it. They looked like they were from a romantic themed miniature golf course) and pens. When the bell rings you introduce yourself to the other party and write down their name in your scorecard in what might be the most awkward moment I have ever experienced in my entire life. Then you have six minutes to have a conversation at which point a bell rings. At this point three things happen 1) you try to politely wrap up the conversation, 2) you then turn to your scorecard and check either “Yes, I would like to talk to this person again” or “No, those were six minutes of my life I will never get back”, and 3) the guy gets up, moves to the next table down the line, and promptly bangs his knee into a table leg.

Now I’ll admit this is not exactly a format that works to my advantage. I don’t think you can pick up my better qualities in six minutes. I’m not sure if six months would be enough time. Hell, I’m not even sure how I work and I’ve been me for a very long time. It’s the type of thing where you need to be on from the moment the bell rings and I’m much more of an ease into the situation type of guy.

Anyway, so we all go to our stations and I discover that, uh, there is no woman sitting across from me. Yes, even at speed dating I couldn’t get a date. Well, what had happened was that two of the women were late including the first person I was supposed to meet. So I just sat at a table for six minutes watching everyone else have a conversation while I just sat there feeling quite possibly as pathetic as I have ever felt in my entire life. Now I’ve been by myself when people are being social before. I know the horrors of hearing Wonderful Tonight and watch everyone else go to the dance floor while you make your way to the bar and hope that you can somehow drink yourself into numbness. But being ditched at something you paid for was another experience entirely.

Then the bell rang and I went to the next table where I met…well, no one. She wasn’t there either. This is what you call an auspicious debut. Even worse it meant that I wasn’t going to be warmed up whereas everyone else had been talking for a while. She at least arrived before the six minutes were up thus allowing me to have thirty seconds of conversation with a real person.

For the rest of the night I at least was able to talk to women so things did improve. It’s very strange having a six minute conversation with someone you have never met before. The first topic is always what do you do for a living. That is actually a rather challenging question for me as I still haven’t figured out how to explain my job. My title is Transmission Specialist, which makes me sound like a mechanic. I usually mutter something about the energy business. It is either that or I fall into the spiel I used to do when I was interviewing over the summer where I would describe my entire work history in an attempt to….ok, I have no idea what that was meant to accomplish. I did it repeatedly through the night because after months of interviewing you can discuss your work history at the drop of a hat. Exactly how my resume was meant to entice a member of the opposite sex to speak to me again is a mystery.

You also have the usual chit chat about what do you do for fun or where you have traveled to recently. Think about what you tend to talk about with a random stranger at the bar and it is similar to that. They did provide us with handy question sheets and dice so that we could randomly choose which question to ask the other. I always felt like that was the silliest thing in the world. How bad is it when within four minutes you are going “I’m just going to read off the cue cards here.” Whenever that happened I said, and I’m not making this up either, “well, if we are going to ask random questions let’s use the best random question that anyone has ever asked me in a bar. Who is your favorite muppet?” Somehow I don’t think that worked.

(For the record my answer is Rowlf the Dog. You can’t go wrong with a piano playing dog.)

The challenge is that six minutes is just long enough to become horribly awkward and short enough so that you can never have a proper conversation. There were a number of times when I was just starting to feel like we had overcome the opening jitters and were getting to know each other when the bell rang and you moved on. It’s as if you are constantly interrupted and by the end of the night all you want is to just have one conversation that doesn’t have a stop watch attached to it.

As for the women I was talking to, well, they were pretty amazing actually. Much, much better than I had anticipated and a lot of them were super cool. To the point where I really wondered just why they were there. I mean, I had a vague reason as being new to town does give me a little bit of an excuse, but some of these women should have no problems getting boyfriends. If I had known that going in I might have tried to up my game a little bit.

Finally I completed the circuit and the night was over. We stayed at the bar for a little while to finish off our drinks and talk some more but the crowd started to empty rather quickly. I was there later than most but soon made my way back home to heat up some dinner and enter my scores into the computer. See, that was the next step. We would all go online and enter whether we wanted to talk again or not. I entered my selections and waited the appropriate few days to see the results. I clicked on the link and was told:

“You have no matches.”

Sigh.

God I suck.