Assembly Line Dating

At least I can say I tried it. I'm all about trying new things this year and this was no exception. Kay and I went to a Speed Dating event last night, held at the Buddha Bar on St-Laurent. In my first post I mentioned that we were thinking about attending October's event but we lost our nerve and backed out at the last minute. This time, we decided to give it a shot. I thought at the very least I'd have material for my blog!

A quick intro for those of you who aren't familiar: Speed Dating is just that. You have quick five-minute one-on-one conversations with singles of the opposite sex. Ladies stay seated and the men change "stations" when the host signals that it's time to move on to the next date. At the end of each date you check YES, NO, or MAYBE beside your date's name. Once you've met all the suitors you write the names of the people you'd like to see again at the bottom of the page. Post-event the organizers send you the contact details of your mutual matches - those you selected who also selected you.

The turnout was incredible, but only in terms on quantity not quality. We had about 20 "dates" last night. It was exhausting. Most of the guys were friendly enough and the five minutes went by fairly painlessly, except for a couple that were simply excruciating. There was the close-talker, who was so close I gave him an eskimo kiss every time I moved my head. I had to lean so far back I was practically reclining on the person behind me. One dude talked only about money (refer back to Rule #4.) Yet another gave one or two word answers to every question, and I finally had to tell him, "Now you ask me something."

Overall and on paper the crowd wasn't bad: young (25-35), stylish, professional. The women were way more attractive than the men. (Male readers please note: the rumours are true. Montreal is indeed chock full of good-looking single women, though I can't vouch for their intelligence or lack thereof.) For the most part there was nothing glaringly wrong about the men I talked to, they just weren't right for me (though judging from what I overheard in the bathroom the other girls seemed perfectly satisfied with the "selection"). I'm not even going to refer to "my type" because I'm fairly open-minded in that sense. I just didn't feel a resounding Yes with any of them, which was OK since I truly hadn't expected to meet anyone, least of all by these contrived means.

People say that dating is a numbers game, the more dates you go on, the better your chances of meeting someone. I suppose statistically speaking this makes sense but I won't subscribe to this belief. Everyone already says how few good people there are left, why prove it by going on 25 haphazard dates and coming up empty handed? I don't see the point. The experience was fun and I'm glad that I tried it but I don't think I'll be going again. The host pulled Kay and me aside at the end of the night and offered to let us attend the next event for free because we were good for business. I suppose we should have been flattered.

I'm definitely of the opinion that it'll happen when it's meant to happen, in whatever way it comes about. I'm not too concerned with looking for something before it's meant to be found.