All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

     I’m going to take a break from the insane task of merging duplicates in my genealogy (I’m down to ~25 pairs left to investigate!  Then it’s on to my cousin-ish’s file which has ~225…) and briefly talk about my experience with speed dating.

     What’s that?  Shaun and dating?  I thought that just didn’t happen!  Well ha ha, but I do have something of a social life.  Now to be honest, I didn’t leave my home that night with the intent of speed dating.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it’s a recent trend wherein a group of singles get together and pair off for no more than five minutes where they try to get to know each other.  Obviously this activity has an equal numbers of guys and girls and is usually orchestrated by a third-party so that the individuals don’t know everyone already.  When time is up, you move on to the next person and begin again.  Often each individual will “rate” their speed date with each person, either at the end of the date or the very end of the activity, and list things they enjoyed, whether they felt a connection with the person, and whether or not they would be interested in going on an actual date with them.

     I actually left my house to go to FHE and was blindsided by this one once I got there.  It was the activity.  To be honest again, I almost ducked out before the activity, but decided that I really needed, and even wanted, to stick this one out for better or worse.  I knew about a quarter of the girls, or at least recognized them, but most were complete strangers to me.  We didn’t do the rating part, but we did have the three-minute conversations.  I had never done this before and I wasn’t sure how I would do (I am rather shy, to say the least).  I actually had fun and thoroughly enjoyed each conversation I was able to have with each girl.  No awkward dead time or anything!

     I’m guessing a few of you are thinking that this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard of and that it’s just a “getting-to-know-you” game.  I concede the point.  However, I have noticed that my generation has a really tough time establishing introductions for themselves.  I’m not sure I understand why that is, but a great deal of the people I know around my age are terrified of introducing themselves, talking with someone new, etc.  This is a topic that can be fleshed out and explored all on its own.  ”Speed dating” simply provides for the structure to introduce yourself in a way that feels “safe”, if I were to analyze it.

     The greatest downfall of it, though, is the time limit.  I was greatly dismayed when time was called because I was thoroughly enjoying the conversation I was having with each girl in turn.  I didn’t want to have to break it off.  I still had a lot of questions and other topics that I wanted to flesh out and discuss with each girl.  In fact, the girl (I’m guessing she’s “mom” for FHE.  How’s that for weird?) that was in charge of the activity and I were having such a good time talking to each other that she completely forgot to call time for the next switch.  Some other guy in the group had to call her attention and tell her we were way over time.

     So the positive was that I was able to introduce myself to a lot of different girls and even enjoy it.  I didn’t have to compete for conversation time and had a chance to get to know her one-on-one as opposed to the chaos that is a group setting where people often split up and form their own circles, anyway.  It was a leveling of the field for me that eased or even eliminated most of my disadvantages in the social scene.  The negative was that I introduced myself to a lot of different girls.  This means I was exposed to a lot of names in a short time, which is never a good combination for my poor short term memory.  Also, I didn’t have enough time to get to know each girl as well as I would have liked, but that’s what a second (or more formal) date is for.  Right?

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