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You've Got Matches:
One girl's foray into the world of speed dating...
THE ASTERISK
As a single woman in our fine city, I often wonder about what happened to the idea of old-fashioned courting - the slow development of a real, true relationship between a guy and a girl, where they get to know each other (without getting to know anyone else on the side) and wait at least three dates before a kiss. Apparently, no one has the time for that anymore, and this concept has stretched beyond technology and applied itself to relationships and dating - in the form of speed dating. We no longer have the patience to wait with bursting hearts for the buds of a relationship to blossom. You may have seen speed dating on "Sex and the City," or more recently in Hitch, starring Will Smith.
Speed dating gives you everything you could want, in a fraction of the time. For a fee, a woman can attend a lounge or club and meet a bunch of single men in her age range. And, for the night, she has a bunch of dates, each a few minutes long, with each man.
I thought about speed dating when one of my friends brought up the idea of online dating. With these new methods of dating becoming more mainstream, I wondered if anyone had actually tried speed dating. To me, it seemed like Lavalife, but in person. I was completely skeptical and close-minded to the idea. Until recently, the popular conception was that only the socially awkward individuals who couldn't get dates and lied about their ages would use services such as these. I wanted to know exactly what types of people would, in reality, attend this type of event. If they weren't NEO, Brad Pitt (now that he's single again), or semi-regular guys like some of my male friends, who were they?
And do people really pretend to be someone they're not, in order to get the attention of the person sitting in front of them? Do they really answer the same questions over and over again because they're that unoriginal?
I wanted to be a fly on the wall to see what kinds of interactions actually existed at speed dating. Was it the same lame pick-up lines that you get at clubs, followed by two minutes of uncomfortable silence? I decided to attend. I figured the benefits would be two-fold - I could satiate my own curiosity, as well as that of other wonderful women who might actually consider this an option in their social lives, and leave having met 25 new people who live in Toronto. There could be nothing bad about the situation.
I went on toronto.com (your source for everything Toronto) and actually found a speed dating event in Toronto. Held at Fez Batik, the event was put on by a service called 25dates.com. This service has been featured on CNN, "Canada AM" and Toronto One, as well as in print in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Life. It made me feel a little better to know that I would not be embarking on a completely sketchy venture. However, as I went through the testimonials on the site, I began to feel a little more unsure, and rolled my eyes so much that I could see the back of my head. There were notes from women who were eternally grateful to speed dating for helping them to find the love of their lives. There were engaged women, married women, and newly dating women - it was like the bad television that you see at 4:00 AM on TBS. I have never been a believer in things like this, cynic or not, because I certainly don't believe that I will meet the future love of my life at a speed dating event, or online. Furthermore, the event was 2-for-1 for ladies. I thought to myself, "This is what clubs do when they are empty at 12:00 AM. They let ladies in so that the guys will follow." Regardless, I signed up, 2-for-1, for 25 dates in one night, and enlisted my friend Lucie to go with me.
The premise is simple. Upon arrival, each person gets a nametag with a number on it, and a scorecard. The ladies find a table, and stay at that spot for the night while the guys rotate. Each couple has a chance to talk to each other for three minutes, until a whistle is blown. At the end of the three minutes, if either person wants to get to know the other one better, they check "yes" on their scorecard. At the end of the night, the scorecards are handed in, and two days later, everyone receives an e-mail. If a couple has a match, they will receive each other's email address, and a free pass to pursue their connection. If a person does not receive a match, he or she may attend another event for free. This is surely an incentive - if you're rejected 25 times, you can come back for more.
As recommended by 25dates.com, we prettied ourselves up in our best "smart casual" couture and hailed a cab, armed with our speed dating tips. "Always have a drink in your hand," we recited in the cab, "so that if the guy is lame, you can take a sip of the drink to pass the time and you don't have to speak." This rule was our abridged version, as the site obviously does not refer to any guy possibly being lame. "Librarian with a hearing problem," I said, rehearsing my "back story" - that is, the story I would tell if I was either uninterested or just bored and wanting to have some fun.
We inconspicuously hung outside Fez to check out the talent as they entered the place. We saw a few guys with questionable and slightly unacceptable heights, and relatively normal looking girls. Upon our arrival into Fez, we again surveyed the scene. The guys looked eager, and the girls looked better than the guys. The girls comprised a good representation of the female population in Toronto in race, age, shape and size, and their average age was 26 years. The guys weren't as equally represented, and the average age was between 28 and 29 years. Most of the guys looked conservative, and were all basically wearing the same outfit. If clothing was a marker for bedroom talent and creativity, then all the ladies were in trouble.
[ Will Dani succumb to any of these conservatively-dressed, Stepfordian speed daters? Part II of the experience. ]