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 JOSE F. MORENO/Courier-Post Byard Harris (above) of West Deptford and Kellie Celentano of Robinsville get acquainted during their eight minute `date.' |
8minuteDating offers participants just minutes each with different potential partners
By MATT KATZ
Courier-Post Staff
It's the fast food of the dating world, the most efficient way of meeting the most people in the shortest amount of time.
Like fast food, sometimes you get a Happy Meal; other times you get a queasy tummy. Either way, it's over in just a few minutes.
Twenty men and 20 women went to Bennigan's in Mount Laurel recently and stepped into South Jersey's newest dating scene, 8minuteDating. The concept, which has taken off in cities but is relatively new here, combines the traditional date, the power of the Internet and the sound of a bell, ding.
Table to table
Participants go on eight, eight-minute dates. They exchange handshakes and first names, hometowns and occupations. They look each other up and down. They smile a lot. Then a bell rings and they go to another table for the next date and do it all over again.
Later, the daters log onto 8minuteDating.com and register the ID numbers of those they are interested in for friendship, dating or business. If there's a match, contact information is exchanged.
Ding.
Joanna Gnudi and Kellie Celentano are admittedly nervous. The 27-year-old friends get to Bennigan's early, have a drink at the bar and check out the scene.
They both have tried the bars and the Internet for love, with little success. When Gnudi saw 8minuteDating advertised, she enlisted her friend.
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"She had no problem twisting my arm," says Celentano, drinking a vanilla Stolichnaya vodka. "I'll try anything once."
Gnudi says, "This is better because you can see the person. People can be witty over e-mail, but then when you meet them they're not."
Time to joke
Alluding to negative experiences in the past, they joke that in their eight-minute conversations they plan to ask guys if they are going to be "leeches" or "stalkers."
Ding.
"I'm 30 years old and sick of being single," says Dave Jacobs of Mount Laurel, a volunteer fireman and student who also works full time.
Jacobs is scouring the scene before the dates begin, sipping a beer and talking to another male participant.
"Women think firemen just want to party," Jacobs says. "I just want to meet someone and give it a try."
Tried Web sites
Like many 8minuteDating participants, Jacobs has tried dating Web sites.
"Stuff would come up after I met them that didn't before," he says. "This, in eight minutes you can basically say you have an attraction to this person. You have something in common with this person."
Unlike Jacobs, Brian Godshall is not nervous. The 39-year-old from Cherry Hill has technique and proven theories about women.
"Girls don't really want you to like them," he says. "It's the whole pursuit thing . . . If you try to sell yourself it doesn't work. All these girls know who they want by looking at you."
And so do the guys. Godshall says he has his eye on three women. Not everyone will date tonight, however. There are only eight dates, so participants have to mingle between dates to meet others.
Now it's game time.
"Alright, Dave! Go get 'em!," Godshall says.
Ding.
Nervous smiles
The dates begin. The men and women find their tables, situated closely together both inside and outside on the patio. Nervous smiles abound. "Hi, I'm . . .," they say, shaking hands.
They then sit down and write their date's name on the sheet of paper they've been provided for notes.
Conversations cover the usual, like jobs and hometowns. But many talk about the experience they have most immediately in common - 8minuteDating and other concepts for love, like Internet dating.
There is a lot of straw stirring and pen playing, mild hand wringing and lively arm motioning. Some touch their face as they listen. Others keep their arms in their laps. Often, couples mirror each other's movements.
It is the nervous fervor of a typical first date - but 20 are going on at the same time.
Ding.
Outside, Godshall talks about music with his date. His long hair blows in the outdoor breeze.
He is evidently smooth. He often has a hand on his chin as he listens and his date does most of the talking, especially in the beginning.
But a few minutes later, another date turns sour. Godshall, however, is prepared. He takes a quick glance at a hand-written piece of paper he has concealed under his 8minuteDating sheet. It contains talking points, including:
He says he brought the list to "make them open up."
It works.
Ding.
Gnudi looks bored. She acknowledges later she kept looking at her watch, waiting for eight minutes to end. She tries asking her date his favorite TV show. He says he doesn't have one. "Who doesn't have a favorite TV show?" she asks later.
Her friend, Celentano, later says eight minutes can be an eternity.
" `Wow, we still have 7 1/2 minutes!' " she says, echoing what she was thinking during one of her dates.
Ding.
Half-time: the 20 minutes after the first four dates and before the last four dates. The men and women mingle, eat some hors d'oeuvre and, in some cases, run to the bathroom to gossip.
During the break, Rachel Hayes of Mount Laurel, 28, says she liked how the eight-minute time periods enabled her to weed out the undesirables.
"If you're still living with mom and dad or still living with five guys, to me that's a red flag that you can't afford your own place and are still partying," she says. "I'm 28 and don't want to wait another 10 years to be married."
Ding.
The hors d'oeuvre tray is cleared and the dates start again. There is a more relaxed air this time.
One woman is laughing hysterically. Her date, Byard Harris, 32, of West Deptford, is apparently pretty funny.
"Eight minutes is not too long," Harris says later. "You just start off and they'll pretty much fill up the eight minutes. No problem."
Ding.
Eddie Lincoln, the night's matchmaker and the South Jersey coordinator for 8minuteDating, says his service is the quickest road to love.
"With our speed dating, it takes Internet dating in reverse," he says. "You meet, see if there's physical attraction and then e-mail them. Most of us won't want to admit it, but the physical attraction is often the most important."
For $28.88, participants in designated age groups can sign up for the events online. This event, for example, was for singles between ages 26 and 40. And the events, Lincoln says, work.
Ding.
Successful event
In the end, after the matches were tallied online, the event appears to be a success. According to Lincoln, 34 of the 40 participants found someone they'd be interested in dating. Twenty-six of those got a match with the person they'd like to date and nearly everyone - 36 people - found someone they'd like to keep as a friend.
Godshall, for one, has corresponded with one woman and may have a date this weekend. Jacobs said he clicked with two women and had a date last weekend.
Gnudi, of Plainsboro, and Celentano, of Robinsville, didn't get a love match. But they both made a friend, who they are talking to over e-mail.
Although the pursuit of love had different degress of success - as it does even outside such controlled environments - there was a common denominator mentioned by all participants.
"It was fun," they said.
If you go
The following 8minuteDating events are
scheduled for South Jersey in the coming weeks. For more information
or to register, go to http://www.8minutedating.com/.
April 29, ages 26
to 40, W.L. Goodfellows and Co., Absecon, Atlantic County
April
30, ages 50 to 63, Ventura's, Voorhees (sold out for women; room
left for men)
May 6, ages 21 to 30, W.L. Goodfellows and Co.,
Absecon, Atlantic County
May 20, ages 35 to 45, Bennigan's,
Mount Laurel
Reach Matt Katz at (856) 486-2456 or mkatz@courierpostonline.com
