Speed Dating In A New Age

A couple of weeks ago, a friend was showing me an article on Speed Dating featured in one of the local tabloid newspapers. The gist of the article is simply on how a certain number of men and women took part in a speed dating competition. Each "date" lasted for like ten minutes or so, then each had to grade / rank the date. The male and female that ranked the lowest would then forfeit and not able to proceed to the next round.

Scary actually. Imagine how nervous it is for some people to meet strangers in a group, let alone start a conversation, and then move on to the next stranger after ten minutes or so. In the first place, ten minutes is hardly enough time to form any real impression. Of course first impressions do count, but normally it takes at least an hour or so before determining if this person is one you feel you can get to know.

The participants were graded according to appearance, conversation skills, body language, character. Well, appearance and body language can be determined in the first few minutes, but conversation skills and character is hard to determine at just the first meeting. Some people take longer to warm up and one's true character can only be determined if one knows a person long or well enough.

I salute those people who were willing to take part in the competition though. Of course it is just for fun, but to sit there and let strangers scrutinise you and then in the end give such a low grading and be kicked out in front of everyone else will be quite a blow to one's self-esteem, unless that person happens to have super thick skin.

I am not one who will go for speed dating. No doubt I go for dating agencies, but the dates I prefer are usually one-on-one. It is through having drinks or dinner and conversation for a couple of hours or so before one can see if the person is of the right frequency and able to relate to each other.

I do go on group dates of course, especially if I go out with friends of my ex(s) and vice versa, but nowadays with everyone working or married or engaged, it is harder to find time to go out together, which is why I mostly go on individual dates for the past few years.

I prefer the comfort of an individual date, even a blind date, in a cosy place with a nice ambience. In this way, I can relax and get to know the other person (provided he is on the right behaviour).

Speed dating is just too stressful, as hardly do you even get to talk to someone, when you have to move on to the next person and so on. At the end of the session, how many people do one really get to know?

I have never been to a speed dating session, so I cannot really comment on that, but to me, I feel spending the same amount of time getting to know one person is much better than cruising through several people at one go. At least in an individual date, one may have the potential of gaining an additional friend, whereas in a group speed date, one may not even get to know one person there since everyone only interacts for like fifteen minutes or so.

Having said that, I should be expecting a date from Lunch Actually this week. Let's see how that turns out!