Anthropology

My friend M has been making some extra money on the side hosting events for an event planning company for a while, and when she had to back out of a recent Speed Dating event, she asked me if I could step in. I agreed, since I'd never been to one before myself- I was curious to see what it was like.

The day before the event, I got e-mails from the event planner with instructions and materials. I showed up at the venue feeling a bit nervous, but pretty well-prepared. That was, until...

"Hi. I'm here to host the speed dating event tonight."
"Um...I don't know anything about that."
*blink, blink* "It's supposed to be here at 7PM...?"

Once he called the manager and confirmed that there was, in fact, an event there tonight, I felt a bit better. That was, until he showed me the "VIP room" where the event would take place, and it was a shoebox. A shoebox where I was supposed to set up fifteen tables with chairs on either side of them, leaving enough room for people to move around. Riiiight.

So I did what any person who doesn't want to piss off the people who paid $25 for this would do- I improvised. And luckily not everyone showed, so the grand total was eight women and seven men and we all juuuuust fit.

I was to let them rotate for five-minute "dates" and then have them move on, turning in a card at the end where they checked "yes" or "no" to say whether they'd like to contact each potential match later. Pretty simple, really. And it was- but I did get to observe some interesting things.

1. I'd rate the men who participated, on average, to be less conventionally attractive and more shy/quiet than the women, with a couple notable exceptions.

2. While there was a posted age range for the event, one woman was much closer to the high end than the others, and she did get fewer matches than the younger woman. One man even noted her age on his card.

3.The most conventionally attractive man in the group got two mutual matches. The man who seemed the friendliest got five.

4. One of the men, who acted like he was too cool for school from the first minute he was there, got no mutual matches, and the women who talked to me at the end thought he was creepy and seemed like a jerk.

All in all it went well, people seemed to enjoy themselves, and no one looked like they had a hard time talking to each other. It's probably something I'll try myself someday...but with another company, at another bar. I like my space.