Cream Magazine

The Fast Lane

Cream
7th July, 2004
The Fast Lane
If meeting a partner is high on your things-to-do list, you might like to consider the new social phenomenon that is speed dating. Matt Swieboda chats up 10 potential partners in one night.

Walking catiously down the spiral stiarcase into the old-world elegance of Bar Europa in inner city Sydney, my nerves are a little tighter than usual abd my outfit a little swankier. Everything But The Girl plays softly in the background as a mianly corporate crowd sit on designer seats, sipping martinis and chatting about whatever it is stockbrokers chat about.

Moving into the next room, there are small tables lined up against the rich, wood-panelled walls. Each table has a number placed discreetly on top, along with two cards and two pens. Very soon - once the guests get slightly drunk courtesy of the champagne being liberally dished out - one boy and one girl will sit at each of the tables. Eight minutes later, the girls will stay seated as the boys move on to the next table.

An initial scan of the crowd looks promising. Each of the ten guys and girls here tonight is aged between 21 and 30. There are no hideous deformities, nor goitres. Everyone seems to have a full set of limbs. Noone is making snarling noises or scratching feverishly. In fact, as a group they are reasonably well dressed, the girls are pretty, and the guys look like pretty decent competition.

We sit down in a haze of booze and pheromones and our night begins.

The origins of speed dating go back six years to a cafe in LA where a re Rabbi named Yaakov Deyo took members of his Synagogue to meet each other through short intervals of feversih conversation. The diea was quickly pickedup by local bars, eager to find a replacement for trivia nights abd other mid-week crowd pullers. Jump to the present and speed dating is a worldwide phenomenon with growth rates in Australia approaching ten percent a month. The three main players are now organising around 50 straight events a month each, with gay events scheduled in melbourne and set to take off nationally very soon.

It's a logical solution for a society that is rapidly becoming to work oriented and too impersonal. So it comes as no suprise that it has taken off primarily in the larger urban centers - over a quater of New York bars have now embraced it.

With many workers now travelling over an hour to work each way and working over 50 hours a week in the office, leisure time is quickly becoming a precious commodity. If meeting a partner is high on your priorities, the idea of spending that time in a bar on Friday night with only a moderate chance of meeting someone loses much of it's attraction. Justin Parfitt, owner of Fast Impressions, one of the two agencies that I trialled, agrees.

"All of a sudden there is an option where you can do something constructive that is great fun," says Parfitt, "and if you get some matches and you actually like the people you matched with, how great is your weekend going to be? It just makes sense. It's a service thta's time has come."

We sit down. It's a much less ego-threatening environment than the local bar. Everyone here knows thta everyone else is single and looking for a partner. There's no need for serrupticious attempts at manoeuvering across the room for the chance to talk to that one glamour, and no chance that talking to her is going to provoke her boyfriend into pulverising you into a bloody pulp. Tonight the playing field is known and the only thing that separates me from all the other contestants is what I have to offer.

As I sit down with my first date of the night, conversation is a little forced. We are both visibly uneasy. I spiel off my cover story and things progress uncomfortably until the gong beckons and I move on to the next table. As the night progresses and the champagne flutes are emptied theings become far more interesting. I meet two girls who work for a big-name PR company, both of whom are really hot; I meet a flirty English girl who I'm sure I could take home tonight if I tried; And with the exception of one or two, all of the girls I meet look like they could easily go out to a bar any Saturday night and pick up. So why aren't they?

Chris Jack of Blink Dating, the other service I used, has a theory. "People that come to our service probably aren't having success meeting people in a bar, partly because they don't wnat to meet the kinds of people that you meet in bars," he explains.

The conversations I have suggest that he's not far off the mark. One girl tells me that of course she could pick up at a bar, but that theee us rarley any longevity in that kind of relationship. These are people looking for partners, not one-night sleepovers. And in this age of 'Sex & The City' ethos and politics, our expectations for what we want out of a relationship are increasing, as is our need to ort through as many potential partners as possible before settling for that special someone.

"Dating has changed dramatically in just the last few years," offers Moretolife dating coach Tina Dolphin, "and I think this type of service is catering to that need and making it a lot easier for people to meet their partner in a more strategic way.

"I think a lot of it has to do with the way women are living their lives very differently and what they are looking hfor in a man has changed quite dramatically. So, particularly from the female point of view, people are looking for a friend and what is very hard for guys in that sense is to be one an intellectual and emotional par with them."

These services market themselves as providing the opportunity to get to know ten or so potential partners in one night, but it's questionable whether or not six or eight minutes is really enough time to lay the basis for a relationship. What do you learn about someone in the time before the gong is rung? The short answer is: not much.