i am going speed dating for the first time in my life tonight - what should i expect?

I've been once before and had a great night, but i didn't followup on any of my matches so technically it was a failure. If you get bored with the smalltalk you could always make up lies about yourself. you'll only need to sustain the lies for 3 minutes anyway.

"DRESS UP so you can pretend that the whole thing is beneath you & you can act all blase & trendy, like duh, this is ONLY a *research* assignment for a novella you are writing."

if i was being all blase, surely i wouldnt dress up, i would go in shorts and a ragged t-shirt

Of course they're not

probably gonna wear my jeans with the butt cut-out so the ladies can see whats on offer

im not that worried about the 3 minute dates, more concerned about the part after where everyone walks about and stands by the bar to 'mingle'

http://www.pimpdaddy.com/yomama-default.shtml

Also, be a fat kid.

some random observations:
there were some guys who ticked 'like' for absolutely every girl in there!
there was some brilliant cleavage on display, and some wonderful brassiere!
there was one girl i genuinely liked, although i will prob never hear from her in my life!
there were a few girls who were attractive but i really dont care about seeing them ever again!
there were some weird guys there!
the night heightened my sense of sexual frustration and made me long for my ex-gf some more!
i think im going to have to meet someone the normal way!
my dad wants to know when im going to get a new gf (last long term relationship ended 5-6 months ago)!

ok end of report

haha this is SO otm! i may even have a picture of her doing just that. please come to our party on the 29th and leave carrying her over your shoulder in a fireman's lift stylee. but do bring her back sometimes, she makes us laugh.

A ha hah haha ha ha ha! Yes! This is The Russian in a nutshell.

I can vouch for her gorgeousness, too.

(Shall we just try to get all our friends hooked up through ILX and raffle them off like Russian Brides?)

((And who wants to go Speed Dating, Emsk? I only did it once, as a joke, to help out a friend, and it was awful.))

I see where she's coming from with all of this, except the cats being called matisse bit.

I'd go speed dating, but the first 3 minutes are not the best bit of me.

I mean the concept behind speed dating - for people who are very busy and don't have the time to spend hours on meeting people and first dates - is sound, I suppose. And I suppose first impressions are important - but I would find it hard to tell, superficial attractiveness aside, if I fancied someone in that short a time. I don't come over well in short bursts. And I can't imagine the kind of person I would be happy with would, either. It does just seem like a pick-up join meat market - not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you want. At least it's honest about its intentions.

Of course if you wanted to be really ruthless you could just make your excuses and get up - no! no excuses! just move on! - if anyone starts off with that routine. No originality - not much hope of long-term interest!

overall, one thing i did come out of last night with was that there are lots of cool women in london, everyones really trying to meet someone nice, its just a bit difficult sometimes, and im not sure if meeting people in 3 minute segments is really the way to do it, its pretty hard to fully gauge what people are like, and if they all dissapear after the speed dating itself, you cant really know either.

I don't see that there's anything difficult about it. You just have to get up off your backside, go out and mix with people, surely? I'm not sure about everyone really trying to meet someone nice - in London it's more like everyone's really trying to meet someone tall, dark, handsome and solvent, so no wonder they get frustrated. That being said I'm not at all keen on the speed dating idea - if I want a job interview I'll apply for another job, thank you very much, and the artificiality of the immediacy doesn't compensate for the longer-term satisfaction that you're going to get from simply meeting someone in the course of your ordinary life, getting to be friends with them, etc. etc.

haha emsk, you be PIMPIN' RUSSKIS! i'm sure she'd be chuffed to know ;-)

Chuck, I was quoting a drunken Rachel Angel at one of the Essex Parties. It was very funny at the time, but perhaps the absinthe has befuddled your memory of the event. ;-)

well, you could, but that would just be rude. its rude to just get up and walk like that isnt it?! the thing is though, ive never done SD before, so wasnt too sure how its meant to go, so for the first few, i thought the usual what do you do etc routine was par for the course. after doing it ten times, i of course got utterly bored with it and decided to just play it by ear.

"I don't see that there's anything difficult about it. You just have to get up off your backside, go out and mix with people, surely?"

well, youd *think* thats all it would take. but you cant tell me that living in london, all you have to do is go and mingle and hey presto, someone will be yours! if only....

"I'm not sure about everyone really trying to meet someone nice - in London it's more like everyone's really trying to meet someone tall, dark, handsome and solvent, so no wonder they get frustrated. That being said I'm not at all keen on the speed dating idea - if I want a job interview I'll apply for another job, thank you very much, and the artificiality of the immediacy doesn't compensate for the longer-term satisfaction that you're going to get from simply meeting someone in the course of your ordinary life, getting to be friends with them, etc. etc."

well of course, i suppose not looking for someone will prob mean you DO find someone, or so im told, actually that IS how i met my last gf, so maybe youre right. but its not quite as bad as a job interview, its just a situation where you have to make up your mind from first impressions, to see if you gel in that short time, and go from there. from about 30 small 'dates', you can decide who youd like to see again, but naturally, whether that method is a good one to decide whether youd like to date anyone is a bit more up for debate.

if anyone's interested, i went online to 'rate' all the girls i saw -you get to decide between yes, no and friend. so far i have 3 people who ticked 'yes' for me, and 2 people who ticked 'friend'. which isnt bad, i suppose, out of just under 30 women, of course i *was* hoping for more, but thats not bad. this doesnt mean that dates are immediately in the offing though, as you still have to email each other and go through that whole process. will have to see what happens.

Yes it would be. So what? Isn't it ruder to subject someone to 3-4 minutes of idle chat which clearly isn't going to lead anywhere? Life's too short!

but you cant tell me that living in london, all you have to do is go and mingle and hey presto, someone will be yours!

No, but my point is if you don't go out and mingle, no one will be yours, and you will be no one's, so to speak.

well of course, i suppose not looking for someone will prob mean you DO find someone, or so im told, actually that IS how i met my last gf, so maybe youre right. but its not quite as bad as a job interview, its just a situation where you have to make up your mind from first impressions, to see if you gel in that short time, and go from there. from about 30 small 'dates', you can decide who youd like to see again, but naturally, whether that method is a good one to decide whether youd like to date anyone is a bit more up for debate.

Rather an expensive way of doing it as well, isn't it? 30 x restaurant bills, 60 x cinema/gig/theatre tickets - seems to me a convenient way for any Potential Other to have a free night out!

Yes, well...join the club! Which is maybe what I should be doing more of - joining clubs...

um, the chances of getting 30 dates after one event are pretty bloody slim! plus, i would expect them to pay their half. im intrigued to know where you recomend as good places to meet and mingle with new people, marcello...

i think im going to join more clubs as well. i think they'd be good places to meet new people. i cant help thinking though that the more effort expended on meeting new people leads to an inverse of new people that want to meet you

And anyone who speaks at less than 50 syllables-per-minute gets ejected.

(trapdoors under the seats would be fun)

not sure what happens to people when they reach their 30s though, the people in that age bracket i know seem to lose all sense of good taste (or perhaps pretending to have good taste). i supose thats the problem being single in your 30s, most people for fear of being alone have already settled

i would recomend go to some clubs, like join an art or photography or film club or something like that, or even a book club!

oh my god, am i old before my time?

wouldn't have thought so. being single in your 30s isn't as problematic as being a widower in your 40s. and a widower in his 40s with asperger's syndrome to boot!

Yes, it's a different beast. People are looking for different things and have different priorities, but I don't want to get caught up responding to vague whiffs of Calumnism.

x-post, I think the panic buying affects women with their biological clocks ticking, much more than men. After all, I'd be "defying nature" if I got pregnant at this stage.

If anything, I'm getting more picky, at a time when there's less choice available. The selection criteria have gone from "good hair and a good record collection" to "intelligent, compassionate, self sufficient, stable, disinterested in conventionality (as opposed to deliberately unconventional), good father material... oh, and good hair" - which is much harder to find in a world where every man wants a skinny 25 year old with no baggage and an adoring gaze.

OH JUST FECKEN WELL ASK HER OUT FOR A DRINK DON'T JUST SIT THERE LIKE A SQUASHED SQUID!!

Excuse after excuse after excuse. In my day we didn't fuck about pondering the meaning of life; if we fancied someone we DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT, and I don't see how insurmountable an obstacle talking to someone in the same office as you can be, unless you choose to make it an obstacle.

I specifically don't want those things - but I don't have much hair... plus, I only seem to do unrequited love atm, which is why i want a girl i can practice dirty unarmed combat with.

x-post

i'm fine about the "no baggage/adoring gaze" deal, though. as would most people be.

i think youre semi joking but i wouldnt go round telling women you like this particular bit of info! i think this is the mistake i made with my ex, i thought she would help me sort myself out. and oddly, she did in a way, though when i was 'sorted' (to a degree), i couldnt be with her anymore. get ye to a counsellor/life coach/psych etc.

or just get into sadism and make any new love payyyyyyyyy for the years of pain their absence inflicted upon you!

I have the same attitude towards mental problems that I have towards money. I've accepted, my entire life, that I would have to earn my own keep. But I can and will *not* support an indigent partner as well. I don't have those kind of resources, monetary or emotional. There's being kind and mutually supportive, and then there's taking this piss - I've been in this kind of relationship before and it's very damaging.

no you're right, i wouldn't go with the special pleading bit. but, you know, any potential partner would have to be aware that there were problems, otherwise it's entering into a relationship on false pretences. i am a widower, i've got asperger's, and i can't pretend that i'm not or i haven't. so people just need to understand that it's not as easy for me. i can't just saunter in oozing confidence. it's not me. obv most potential partners would consider me too much to take on and go off and find someone a lot easier. but in a sense that's what i'm doing. so i can't win.

The point is that the only way for this sort of thing to evolve naturally and for it to be understood properly is that any useful relationship has to be formed on the background of an already long-existing friendship. If you've known someone brother-and-sister style for years on end it becomes easier to confide these things, and conversely for these things to be understood and accepted. That's how it works - or should work.

xpost

You know, Marcello, I don't think you did. At least, I don't *recall* anyone ever mentioning A***** P****** on it.

This whole ticking business is, of course, how Nazi Germany started.

i dunno, ask her. i should think she could be quite vicious if you poked her with a stick or hid her favourite shoes or something.

((And who wants to go Speed Dating, Emsk? I only did it once, as a joke, to help out a friend, and it was awful.))

h does. not that she needs to! sounds like a bloody horrid way to spend an evening to me.

haha emsk, you be PIMPIN' RUSSKIS! i'm sure she'd be chuffed to know ;-)

er yes hello please don't tell her. she doesn't come here cos she thinks ur all gayeeks.

I'm not referred to as a nationality. I feel left out now.

no johnney, you have your very own genre: whippersnapper-gone-prematurely-middle-aged. which i suspect is the same as just saying aston tirrold anyway.

x-post

No, no, I'm *sure* you haven't

</sarcasm>

I say that's rather forward of you FP... :-)

ex-cellent. the russian system of self-defence, systema, includes defences against stick attacks which i would like to learn. i also know no defences against angry women who've lost their shoes or, as it happens, those armed with soft fruit. i feel sure if she beats me in a no-holds-barred fighting contest i will transfer all my unrequited love/unhealthy obessiveness to her - and then she'll really have something to worry about.

I usually assume everyone knows about my masochistic kinks, but that's partly because whenever I post about them logged out, people quickly guess it's me.

(I did put a logged-out post on my kinky fetish thread, incidentally)

(xpost to Marcello)

Sooooo, this was less excruciating than I thought it would be, but would not repeat in a hurry.

They had a 'lock and key' session and the prizes were Zagat guides for a different city.

'lock and key' session

allay my speeding imagination

"I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates, now show me your dick" is the way I learned it. back then the prize was a babby, but I like it better your way.

LJ, ladee gets a lock, gent gets a key, if your lock and key fit you win... a Zagat guide to Boston

so it's pure chance, whether you get schooled-up in municipal ephemera

Yep, you just have to trust your breaks that way

this makes me scared to attempt dating in dc!

xp yours are the sage words of cruel experience. next time, next time he'll have the right key. next time.

Tehresa, it was a fun night - I met lots more people I liked than I would have in a bar or at work. The main thing was to avoid the guy walking around asking everyone in quick succession if they wanted to tour the museums tomorrow.