From the television series “Rizolli & Isles”
So let me tell ya’ll something. I went to this speed dating event a good while ago… I’m talking WEEKS, and I’m just now writing about it. So if that’s any indication as to how it went then… you’ve guessed correctly. Never again.
Now before I get into my experience as a speed dater, I must include a few disclaimers.
1. I only represent my personal opinion
2. Speed dating isn’t bad… per say
3. The host determines how successful or unsuccessful the event can be
4. You should go to at least one in your lifetime. That applies to everyone
So back to MY experience…. I’ll never go again. Like ever. And for a number of reasons.
For one, it just doesn’t seem natural to me. First off, the set up is just cheesy in my opinion. The women are set up in rows of seating, which I feel were entirely too close in proximity to one another at the event I attended. I say that because during 97% of the time I was laughing at something I overheard during a “date” of one of the ladies on each side of me. A lot of these guys were just corny man. lol
Honestly to me it just felt like an assembly line. Each “date” was about 3-5 minutes long and the end was signaled by a DJ screaming into a microphone “Alright fellas NEXT… move it along, there are other women waiting”. Yeah, nothing sexy about that.
Also, I noticed that the women (and not to toot my own or the 4 other women I went with’s horn) but the ladies were much more attractive than the guys there… as a whole. And I know that sounds horrible and shallow but ya’ll I sat on a 3 minute date with a guy who could have been my father’s father… and he was just oozing with pervert and creep vibes as he donned a suit from a 1960’s thrift shop some where. Not to mention he had bad knees or something cuz he needed my help getting into and out of the little seats they had set up. Now the seats were kinda low but sir stop it. Nothing about that was cute. But I’ll give him 2 cool points for the effort. He put himself out there and I applaud him for that. Love doesn’t discriminate against age I guess.
Back to my point tho… It was some incredibly beautiful women there and the guys were just… blah. Nothing to get excited about or to anticipate the next event for. It was like the host just found a few guys somewhere and was like “Hey want to meet some women?… Follow me!”. Which brings me to my next point…
The event took place at the Empire Rooftop here in Manhattan, and if you’ve ever been there you know the place is pretty nice. So the host obviously didn’t anticipate so many women showing up (we outnumbered the guys pretty obviously) and because of that not only did he have to jump in and participate instead of “hosting” but he was pulling random, unsuspecting dudes from the crowd of party goers into this speed dating event to have enough “dates” for all of the women there.
I must also mention that… it was so many women in attendance that the dates had to be done in “rounds” and these poor guys had to stay for each round to date each woman in all of these groups of women. Many of the guys and I shared a laugh about how strange that was and how they were losing their voices and just tired of talking and switching seats in general.
When you see speed dating scenes in movies it seems as though only a certain number of people are allowed to attend and it’s not some free for all. I just think it could have been planned better.
Now on to the actual “dates”. Oh my God… like why Lord. This was just horrible. I mean, with the exception of maybe like 2 or 3 guys who actually knew how to hold a (ahem 3 minute) conversation… the rest of them were just awkward.
There were rules given to us beforehand like… “Don’t talk about profession or careers” or “Don’t ask each other where you’re from” and every single person broke these rules lol. I mean c’mon… were conversing with strangers and “so, what’s your favorite food” just isn’t too interesting regardless if you’re speed dating or not.
Questions like “What are you looking for in a mate?” doesn’t take 3 minutes to explain and if it does well… you’re then sitting there no longer listening to the guy while simultaneously staring at the DJ like “NOW you should yell Next bruh!”.
But of course he doesn’t yell Next. He only pays attention to the 3 minute date rule when you stumble upon some guy who is actually kinda cute and has successfully made you laugh. Obviously the DJ hated these types of connections.
He only liked to extend the time limits when your “date” was telling you what he would do to you if you were his woman or some other type of inappropriate conversation of the sexual nature. Then there was that time when I looked to my left and the woman next to me was being licked on her neck by her date. No lie. The look on her face and her body language led me to believe that action was uninvited and unexpected. It’s safe to say that she’ll never go speed dating again either lol.
So anywho… the idea was to fill out this form as you experienced each date. The women were given letters to be identified as and the guys were just given regular name tags. As the dates commenced you would write down a yes or no by the person’s name and at the end if you shared a mutual interest in each other the host would then email you both each other’s contact info for you to take it from there.
My friends all started doing this “umm let’s go!” look to each other and because there was no incentive to stay and take part in the after party we packed up and headed out. The host saw us leaving and tried to derail our departure but we blamed it on early work schedules and bounced.
In the end I ended up getting an email with one guy listed as a mutual connection of the 20 or so guys I ‘dated” that night. Needless to say he and I never reached out to each other. I can’t say with conviction why he never reached out to me… maybe I wasn’t his 1st round draft pick of the night and he hit it off more with someone else or something lol… but I wasn’t offended.
He was funny but I wasn’t necessarily attracted to him. He wasn’t ugly or anything but he wasn’t “Me”. He did make me laugh… but obviously not enough to inspire me to reach out to him. So the saga continues.
One thing I will say though is that the saga will continue at anywhere BUT a speed dating event. I’m done. Luckily I didn’t pay to get in because then I would’ve really felt jilted.
To sum it all up and in my best Robin from Waiting to Exhale voice…
I could’ve had a V8.
