8 Minutes and the ins and outs of Manchester dating

 

Dating sucks.

Except for those few anointed ones, those lucky bastards, for whom walking up to a member of the opposite sex and blowing their mind with the sheer power of their wit requires no more mental strength than that required to smell a pair of dirty socks, dating just really, really sucks.

But it doesn’t always suck. When you’re with the right person, dating circumvents the day-to-day crap that embitters you when you’re not getting any, it injects your insecurity with the narcotic balm of hope, adds a little poetry to your day and reminds you that being alive can be, well, worth waking up for. That’s why we throw ourselves out there and enlist in that excruciating search replete with rejection, wasted time and embarrassing physical compromises. But it is that difficult search, that tentative tip-toe process, that makes dating utterly suck.

And as if it couldn’t be more difficult, couple a reserved personality with a 60-, 70-, 80-hour work week and you’ve got a recipe for one sad life subdued by ice cream, reality TV and random, uncontrollable weeping. 

But again: it doesn’t have to be that way. There are others—thousands of others—in the same predicament, and there are measures you can take. You don’t have to go to a bar only to have some slob spit on you during a banal conversation about his job and then expect you to give him your number, or have some girl tell you after a long conversation, God forbid, that she’d love to be friends. Online dating is no longer taboo, it’s common. And if online dating is too abstract or risky for you, there’s speed dating. Take, for example, eight-minute dating.

Dating: the short cut

Here’s how it works: register at www.8minutedating.com for an event in your age group and area.

After paying a fee of about $35 (the price of cheap date, actually), gather at a nightspot in that area along with anywhere from 20 to 100 others enrolled for the event. There, you are given a numbered nametag and a dating card. Over the course of about two hours, you are set up with eight one-on-one conversations that last eight minutes each. There is an intermission after the fourth date, during which you can mingle with people you haven’t dated yet, and you can do the same after the eighth date. To keep conversations comfortable and safe, participants do not request anyone’s contact information during the event. On your dating card, you write the first name of everyone at the event who interests you for dating, friendship or business. After the event, you log onto the web site and enter the name and number of people you’d like to see again. When people you’ve entered also choose your name, the web site notices the match and forwards you their contact information, and then you’re on your own to arrange a second date.

But is eight minutes really enough time to get to know someone?

“Yes, very much so,” said Amy Lazzar, a sprightly 33-year-old event organizer, before a recent event for 30- to 40-year-old singles at the Black Brimmer.

As Lazzar reasoned, when talking to someone at, say, a bar, a certain amount of time is wasted just trying to find out if someone is single, let alone interesting. Then factor in the noise of a crowded bar, and the group of friends this person might be with that could distract your potential mate—how I hate the sneer of the chaste, sober friend—and derail your fast-forming designs. With eight-minute dating, you’re plopped right down in front of someone you already know is single and looking for company. 

“This gets people of a certain age together in a bar and they know they’re there to meet people,” Lazzar said.   

Boston entrepreneur Tom Jaffe started 8-Minute Dating in 2001 after recognizing that singles like himself were tired of bars, pick-up lines and blind dates. The company grew from a one-man start-up to one of the world’s most successful “speed dating” services, with now more than 60,000 customers and 150 event organizers in 55 cities in the United States and Canada.

The whole idea is a bit institutional (and oddly biblical), with the whole robot-like first name and number thing—Hello, Betty 316, I’m John 220—but considering the long hours so many people work today, do you have the time and money to waste only to find out that some random girl or guy is married or simply not into you?

“I just ask people to have an open mind,” Lazzar said. 

8 minutes in Manchester

About 34 singles, equally divided between men and women, attended an event last Thursday at the Black Brimmer, starting at 6:30 p.m., a late enough time to socialize but not late enough to be distracted by a crowded bar and loud music.

Steve April, a 37-year-old computer technician from Canterbury, related a typical story: a divorced father of two, he voiced frustration with trying to meet someone in the more traditional mode. He joined a number of singles organizations before trying 8-Minute Dating. This was his second 8-Minute Dating event; at his first, he landed one date, which didn’t work out.

“I had a lot of fun because it’s fast-paced and different,” April said. “You know enough to get an impression of someone to know if you want a second date.”

Karen, 28, wasn’t frustrated with nightlife as much as she was with online dating. For her, 8-Minute Dating offered a more intimate approach to meeting someone of the same mind.

“You can’t see chemistry on a computer screen,” she said.

A little after 6:30, Lazzar took the stage in her bright red shirt with “Cupid” written on the front in white. Patrons at the sparsely populated bar looked on with a mixture of confusion and bemused curiosity as Lazzar gave a brief introduction over the microphone. Many of the participating men, looking quiet and determined as they sipped their drinks, had by now taken solo seats at the many numbered tables toward the Elm Street side of the restaurant; the women mingled in clusters at the bar.

“Anyone is a potential date,” Lazzar announced after recapping the rules. “Get as much out of eight minutes as you can. Let the dating begin!”

Then she rang a cow bell.

Like adolescents begrudgingly accepting the almost gravitational pull of a slow song at a sixth-grade dance, the singles look at their cards and slowly make their way to their designated tables, nearly bumping into other nervous singles making their way to theirs. After awkward, cordial introductions, the bar is nearly silent as the singles get right down to business, alternately asking questions and crossing them off on their cards.

A quick survey of the room shows most of the couples engaged in what seems to be comfortable, relaxing conversations complete with eye contact and polite laughter.

“Come relaxed,” Lazzar said over a cigarette at the bar as the singles got to know each other. “That’s the biggest thing. Come like you’re going on your first date, even though you’re going to have eight dates. And know what you want: coming to an event and not knowing what you want is not a good thing.”  

It certainly seems like most of the singles know what they want as they rattle off questions and cross them off like they would milk on a grocery list. I ask Lazzar how singles know if they’ve made a connection in eight minutes.

“You’re going to know right away whether there is an attachment there,” Lazzar said. 

Dating for fun and profit

A single mother of twins, Lazzar tried 8-Minute Dating herself in 2002.

She failed to meet that special someone, but she says she’s made tons of friends and connections. She applied to become an event organizer to supplement her income at Ford Motor Credit Company.

“When you’re talking to someone at a bar or club, you don’t know if they’re single or dating or married,” Lazzar said. “It’s intimidating to go up to somebody like I did Friday night: I walked up to this guy and had a nice conversation, and I was like ‘Are you single?’ And he’s like ‘No.’ I’m like, I just wasted so much time talking to you. It’s not a bad thing—I like talking to gorgeous guys—but I’m a single girl looking for a single guy.”

Lazzar takes the stage, rings her bell and announces the end of the first date, and the singles again stand, examine their cards and begin looking for their next date.

“They seem a little nervous; there’s a lot of leg-shaking going on,” said Lia Damm, 24, a cocktail waitress who was feeding booze to the singles. “It’s kind of cute.”

“They come in all tight and then they realize, ‘Wow, eight minutes is really not that bad,’” Lazzar said.

Eric Pharo, a 30-something EMT and aspiring firefighter, and Dee Redford, a 30-something warehouse manager from Goffstown, were good enough sports to let me—like an anthropological pervert—listen to their meeting in the fourth round (I’d been eyed suspiciously a few times by now as I took notes a foot away from tables).

After asking each other if they’ve ever done this before, they turn the conversation to work, stress, Redford’s stint in the Navy and exercise. Redford is a loud talker and naturally more gregarious, using ample body language, whereas Pharo nods politely, fixes his glasses or rubs his folded hands together on the table in front of him. But they get some good, natural laughs out of each other, and it seems that in those eight minutes—at their table and at most of the surrounding tables—the outside world ceases to exist. As the bell rings for the intermission, the two continue talking: always a good sign of a possible connection.

“It went great,” Redford said later. “There was no connection, but it was fun. You have to understand: I am five [foot] nine [inches] and a half. Everyone I’ve met has been great and I’d love to hang out with them, but they’re shorter than me.”

Redford is a friend of Lazzar, and Lazzar asked her to step in for a woman who couldn’t make it.  Disenchanted with the dating scene in Manchester, Redford eagerly took up the offer. Besides managing a warehouse, Redford also waitresses, which gives her a keen view of Manchester singles.

“I just see too many guys come to the bar and get drunk,” Redford said. “They end up chewing their arm off the next morning because they don’t want to wake the person they wake up next to, because they drank so much the night before. I don’t want that. I don’t want to go out and party. I want a meaningful conversation.” 

Critiquing the date

Over the intermission, the singles mingle in small circles over light appetizers and drinks. After hearing the rather dry, though cordial, conversation between Redford and Pharo, I asked Karl, a 38-year-old designer of medical devices, what he asks during his eight minutes.

“You’ve got to get out the key things that are important to you,” Karl said, nursing an Amstel Light. “Ask the questions that would make or break a relationship.”

This was Karl’s fourth 8-Minute Dating event. For Karl, the reason for trying 8-Minute Dating didn’t have so much to do with meeting people as it did with the time required to find out if they’re available.

“I’ve no problem talking to people, it’s more of the approach,” Karl said. “You get the nerve to talk to somebody, then you get turned down for whatever reason. It’s a time-consuming process. Here, you know everybody wants to date and meet somebody.”

Karl said that through 8-Minute Dating he’s also made a number of friends and business connections—a theme widely shared among the singles experienced with 8-Minute Dating.

“I’ve never had much luck in the bar scene,” Karl said. “My entire life, I don’t think I’ve ever had a relationship with someone I’ve met at a bar.”

Friends Kimberly and Karen sat a table during the intermission, eating appetizers and literally comparing notes. Both said that they’d met really nice people and had totally different, engaging conversations. Kimberly said she might be interested in becoming one guy’s friend, but Karen said she had yet to make any sort of connection.

“But I’ve only been on four dates,” Karen said.

Like many of the singles, Steve April, the 37-year-old computer technician, was looking much more relaxed during the intermission.

“It’s going well,” April said, surveying the room. “There’s a lot of potential, and frankly, it’s a good-looking crowd.”

Chris, a 33-year-old business analyst, lives in Manchester but works in Boston. This was her fifth 8-Minute Dating event.

“By the time I get back to Manchester, I’m usually too tired to go out,” Chris said, sipping her drink. “There’s not enough hours in the day. This gives you something to look forward to.”

Aaron, a 40-year-old employee of a high-tech company in Amherst, said he has neither the time nor the inclination to try to meet women at bars, most of whom, he suspects, are either married or involved. With 8-Minute Dating, he said, he is able to meet a fair number of single women in a relatively short period of time. His advice? Be yourself.

“If you do meet somebody and you put on this persona, and you decide to go on a second date, you’re stuck with that,” Aaron said. “Sooner or later, you’re both going to be disappointed.”

The perils of Manchester dating

Weary of suspicious glances from singles as I eavesdropped on conversations, I spent the next couple dates chatting with Chris Demers, 39, and Moira Callahan, 24, two singles who were not participating in the event but were following its outcome from the bar, about the dating scene in Manchester.

Demers is originally from Maine, and Callahan is originally from New York City.

Callahan said she liked the fact that, for the most part, guys in Manchester “aren’t psychos,” but on the other hand, she claimed they tend to be needy and drink too much—a deadly combination. She and Demers complained that besides going to bars and movies, there isn’t much to do here, and that people from Manchester tend to be cliquey.

“If I grew up here and all my friends lived here, I would have a blast,” Demers said. “It’s like when I go home to Maine—there’s nothing to do there, but my friends and I still have a great time.”

“You need to be from here to really enjoy it,” Callahan said.

By the end of the seventh date, the soft light of chandeliers and table-top candles supplanted the sunlight that had filled the bar through the first half of the event, lending the bar a relaxing glow which, mixed with the evening’s gradual intake of alcohol, gave the singles a relaxed, un-self-conscious air as they strode confidently from table to table.

“I spoke to a couple women, and some of them said they haven’t really met anyone yet, but another one said it was going really well,” said waitress Lia Damm. “They definitely seem more relaxed—I’m sure the alcohol helped.”

Where earlier the singles looked a bit out of place, now, as the band set up on stage and the bar filled up, it was hard to notice there was even an event taking place.

“OK everybody,” said Lazzar over the mic after the seventh date. “This is your final date—make it a good one!”

All the nerves the singles overcame over the course of the evening seemed to return after the eighth and final bell rang. As Lazzar explained, after the event’s conclusion is when earlier connections are consummated with follow-up conversations. The singles ambled around aimlessly, looking for the one they’d made a connection with and eyeing the competition. Here and there a couple joined each other at the bar. Girlfriends who came together compared notes in booths. Some mingled on the dance floor.

“It went really well, I met a few more potentials,” said Steve April.

Later, he said, he would log on to the web site and list those he felt he’d made a connection with. But for now, the night was still young.

“I’m going to hang out, listen to the band, and maybe chat with some of the people that I met,” April said.

“I met a couple prospects I would have never met,” said Dianne David, a 40-something widow who came with a few friends. “You can spend five hours in a bar and not get to know anyone.”

The dating aftermath

Lazzar informed me the next day via numerous e-mails that promising connections were indeed made. Jay Lambert, a 32-year-old employee of a financial software company, formed a match with Chris, the 33-year-old business analyst who commutes to Boston. Lambert told me by phone the next day that the two had met at a previous event, so they already knew a little bit about each other. Chris is going to graduate school and Lambert has graduate school experience, and the two shared other things in common.

“I saw a potential for a connection and I thought it was worth pursuing,” Lambert said. “If there’s any spark it behooves you to pursue it.”

Though they didn’t get a chance to talk during the intermission or after the event, Chris apparently felt the connection too, and entered Lambert’s name and number on the 8-Minute Dating web site.

“It’s always a cool feeling,” Lambert said, of finding out a connection was made. “You get a little psyched about it.”

Another possible benefit (or detriment, depending on what side you’re on) of 8-Minute Dating is multiple connections: if you match with a few singles, you’ve got your pick of the litter, so to speak.

“I’m going to give it a day or so [before I call] just to see how many matches I get,” Lambert said, sounding like an 8-Minute Player.

Lambert said this was his fifth event, and that he initially explored 8-Minute Dating because of his erratic work schedule. 

“With any kind of dating, you spend so much time just trying to meet someone who’s available,” Lambert said. “This at least takes part of that quotient out.”

Like Aaron, Lambert’s ultimate advice for prospective 8-Minute Dating was to be yourself.

“Let the walls come down and be yourself: people aren’t there to play games—they’re there to meet someone,” Lambert said. “You’d be surprised how much you can learn about somebody in eight minutes.”

—Story by Bernard Vaughan. Photos by Allegra Boverman