Speed dating takes some of the edge off the process
by Joe Tarr
At the time, it seemed like one of the most terrifying things I'd ever tried to do but I knew that I had to do it.
My senior year in high school was dwindling to a close. I'd never been on a date in my life, never even kissed a girl, but one of those life experiences that everyone is supposed to do was bearing down on me—the senior prom. I didn't want to be a loser.
I had had plenty of crushes on girls and spent a great deal of my time puzzling over and yearning for them, but truth is they just frightened me. They seemed so mysterious and unattainable, like they possessed the secret of life and I wasn't cool enough to get it. It probably didn't help that I went to a boys' Catholic high school, where I was denied badly-needed daily contact with girls who weren't related to me.
My friends and I—only one of whom actually had a girlfriend at the time—plotted our strategies a few months in advance as we drank beer at a hunting camp one evening. The details are a little hazy, but someone decided (I don't think it was me) I would ask out Beth. She was plenty cute and nice, and had she liked me I would have fallen madly in love and followed her around like some annoying puppy, eager to please and quick to bruise.
A few nights after the beer-drinking strategy session, I snuck down to my basement and planted myself on a beanbag next to the phone. After several aborted dials, I finally reached her. It must have been excruciatingly painful for her to listen to me stammer an invite.
She said "No"—something about having to take the SATs the next morning. I asked two other girls to go with me and although the asking got easier, their responses were the same. Truth is I was relieved. I was convinced the prom—with the requisite tuxedo, corsage, fancy dinner, formal dancing—would have been a traumatic experience from which I might never recover.
In college, things got much better, thanks to the fact that many of my friends were women and I learned that they were just human. Although we grew up in worlds that weren't quite the same, and we might never be able to completely understand one another, a middle ground of empathy and compassion was certainly within reach.
Getting to that place took patience, work and honesty. And that's where the trickiness of dating came in.
It seems to me that the techniques of dating and of being in a relationship are not quite the same. When the longest relationship of my life ended not long ago, I found myself listening to a lot of Hank Williams' songs and wondering what in the hell I was going to do next. When you've been in a relationship long enough, the freedom you might have craved just feels like fear. The game seems cruel and in a way, I guess it is.
At what might have been my darkest period of recovery this spring, an email arrived: "Speed Dating is sweeping the nation and we thought we should bring it to Knoxville. What happens during the course of a gathering is that you will have 16 single people (eight men and eight women), who are looking for that special someone. The people will first have 10 to 15 minutes to mingle until it's time for the event. After 15 minutes, everyone will be seated, a man and woman at each table, they will then speak for eight minutes. At the end of eight minutes they will rotate on to the next table, until they've spoke with everyone. During their rotation they will have a card with the names of all the single men and women in their group. At the end of the night they will turn that card in and if a match is made we will notify them in the next 2 or 3 days. It is a very fun process and we would love to share it with you."
It sounded like a completely awful way to spend an evening. But I've found that awful experiences often make for good stories, so I decided to give it a shot. And I also figured it was time to stop moping.
I had no hope of finding true love, but I certainly didn't plan on shooing it away, either, should it rear its mythical head.
The speed-dating session I attended was held out at Adrien's café, a deli just west of Pellissippi Parkway on Kingston Pike. Driving out there, I was the pimple-faced high school kid again, and I drove past the café several times before I could collect the nerve to park and go inside.
When I walked in the door, there were three or four women sitting at tables patiently eying people as they walked in. One of the organizers, Jaclyn Rice, greets people at the door. She hands out a short survey of personal information to fill out and a waiver.
She has a bubbly personality well suited for her work. And while there's obviously an entrepreneurial motivation, she seems to love matchmaking. She started Knoxville Speed Dating with a partner—who has since left to form her own speed-dating group—after they'd seen a television report on it. They checked to see if there were any speed-dating groups in Knoxville, and there weren't.
Rice says speed dating is attractive because there's no one-on-one pressure of say a date from a personal ad or set-up from friends, and it's easier to get to know people than in the bars.
"When you're in a bar you don't really get to speak to anyone. This way you get eight minutes without interruption where you can relax," Rice says. "You get the details."
"We've tinkered with the time. Sometimes five minutes is not enough, sometimes 10 can be excruciating.
Another benefit is you don't have to deal with the awkwardness of telling someone you're not interested. "There's no rejection. If you meet someone and like them, fine. Even if you don't make a love connection, you can meet some friends.
In the 40s-age group there seems to be more men than women; in the 30s-age group the men are more in demand.
"We're in dire need of men in their 60s," Rice adds. "Nobody wants to date a grandmother."
They often have matches, however Rice hasn't followed up with all the participants to see if they lead to romance.
Unfortunately, interest in speed dating is pretty low tonight. I shuffle my feet and sit on a chair—again, I'm the awkward teenager, with his hands in his pockets at a high school kegger. It feels like the women are eying me over, trying to judge whether I'd make a suitable mate. I can't imagine what it is they see.
After about a 30-minute wait, there are only five women and three men who have shown up. Rice and her partner keep reassuring me that this is good for me—less competition.
When they decide to start the show, Jaclyn and her partner (who are both in relationships) have to play men.
The eight-minute sessions are so much easier. The mini-conversations remove all the social pressures and some of the conventions and allow for a bit more frankness. Three of them are physical therapists, another a pathologist, the fifth is in public relations. At least two have recently moved to the area and don't know many people. One is a workaholic who realized she wanted more of a social life. They live in West Knoxville or the 'burbs.
They all ask if I'm going to write about this. Some ask me what I want out of a relationship. For some, it's just small talk. There's a lot of discussion about jobs and hometowns.
Others cut right to the chase: what are you looking for in a relationship? A few ask me, "are you nervous?" (Of course.) Still, I didn't really have much of a sense of what these women were like. Most of the conversations go fairly quickly, and the whole thing is over before I know it.
And then it's time to circle names. I enjoyed talking to two of the women and consider circling their names. But, at the same time, I don't really see anything serious developing with either of them, and I don't really need any more friends. Or maybe I'm just not ready to date again, I think. I wonder if people are watching to see whether I'll put my card in the box.
I go to the bathroom where I fold the card up and put it in my pocket.
People who have never used a dating service, taken out a personal ad or tried something like speed dating tend to see it as a pathetic endeavor for people who can't get a date any other way. This is my first attempt at any of these dating methods. I think the attraction is a sense of power and a speeding-up of the process. In any of those dating techniques, there's a feeling of cutting through the bullshit.
The sense of control is probably just illusion—sooner or later you've got to get down to the nitty gritty of human relations and confronting your own shortcomings, the reasons that you are still single.
But perhaps the little illusions are what we need to keep the fear at bay.
July 10, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 28
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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