Are You a Candidate for Speed Dating?

In this day and age of various ways to meet someone for dating and possibly more, one of the oddest ways of doing this has stuck around and even expanded itself. It’s a fun little exercise known as Speed Dating, and is probably among the most unique methods of meeting new people there is. People seem to either love it or hate it, but rarely is anyone indifferent.

Speed Dating isn’t exactly “dating” but rather more of an interview process between two people to see if they may want to get to know each other better. These events are organized by various dating agencies. Some even specialize in Speed Dating events. They can be for any legal age or sexual orientation.  These events can be for a set age range, older women and younger men, older men and younger women, and everything else you can think of. Whatever taste exists in dating, there’s a Speed Dating event for it.

The way these work is people are either invited to participate or they discover an event on their own and want to register for it. There’s a fee charged per person and there’s usually a limit as to how many people can attend a single event. The number of attendees is an even one for obvious reasons. These are the people that are going to be spending a few minutes with each other during the Speed Dating event to see if they connect.

Usually, there are tables set up so that everyone sits across from each other when it’s their turn to chat. There will be a sound of some sort like a bell or whistle to indicate that the “dating” between the couples will begin. It’s during this time that the couples speak to each other for anywhere from three to eight minutes. They typically introduce themselves to each other and then either volunteer a bit of information about themselves or ask questions of each other. At the end of the time limit, the bell or whistle will sound again and new couples pair up to repeat the process.

At the end of the event, there is usually something social set up for drinks and snacks. During this time, anyone that was impressed with someone else they met through the speed date will give that name to the organizers of the event. This means that the organizers have permission to contact the person on behalf of the interested party.  If the person contacted isn’t interested, he or she will state that and it ends there. However, if there’s interest, then these two people will be given contact information so they can arrange for an actual date together.

Whether or not you’re a candidate for this way of meeting someone depends on the type of person you are and what your preferences are when it comes to getting to know someone. If you’re open minded and like to have some unique fun when it comes to the dating process, Speed Dating just may be a great way for you to meet someone that’s just as much fun as you are.

Advantages of speed dating

In terms of popularity, speed dating has become very big since the start of this decade, as it can remove a lot of the searching from the process of finding the right partner. People have taken to speed dating in a big way because, for the most part, it takes away some of the awkwardness of looking for a partner.

When trying to find someone with whom to share the dating experience, there is a certain amount of dread attached to approaching someone who may or may not be “available”. They may be in a relationship, they may be taking a voluntary break from dating altogether, or they may be interested in a different sort of person. However valid and inoffensive their reason for passing on the opportunity, it still hurts to be rejected. At a speed dating event, it is clear that everyone is there for the purposes of meeting a potential dating partner. If they then do not want to date you, it is just a matter of taste. Hard to accept, maybe, but at least there is clarity.

As well as this, speed dating allows you to meet the person face to face and see if you feel a connection before embarking on a “real date”. Sometimes a first date, especially a “blind date” can be a harrowing and embarrassing experience for both people because they simply do not “hit it off”. Speed dating gives you the chance to see if the spark is there before investing unrealistic expectations.

Speed dating

There is such a high level of importance placed on finding the “right” partner these days that a wave of different dating services have opened up to allow people to try and find someone. Among these services are several that enable the individual to “vet” possible suitors before they actually go on a date, the theory being that you can find out in advance if you have enough in common to make dating worthwhile. Of these methods, one of the most popular is “speed dating”. This is, in short, a way of meeting several potential suitors in one night for a controlled period of time (from three to five minutes, usually).

In the course of a speed dating evening, depending on the turnout, a person can meet anything from a few to around twenty people in whom they might be interested. In theory, for a mixed-gender speed dating event, there should be an equal number of men and women, and the attendees of a particular gender will all be sat at fixed tables. They will then be visited in turn by possible dating partners, and have a short amount of time to chat about whatever interests them. At the close of each “visit”, an individual will either put a tick or a cross next to the name of their “date”. The following day they will feed their responses into the speed-dating website, and any coupling that gave each other a tick will then be able to arrange another date. From that point, it is all up to them.