It looks like a typical bar scene: There's the bartender,
flirting with the blonde in the red turtleneck and leather pants.
There's the cluster of post-college types, whispering about and
eyeing the young men. And there's the lone fellow, nursing a beer
and looking uncomfortably around the noisy room.
Then the bell rings.
Forty-eight people settle into pairs at small tables to which
they've been randomly assigned. There, they quiz each other about
their hobbies, jobs, and dreams. They flirt and laugh and cock their
heads - all until the bell rings again a few minutes later, when
they quickly slip on to their next table. In just over an hour,
everyone will have had eight "dates."
It may not be Mom's idea of how to find a beloved, but this
assembly line of dating has nevertheless become all the rage, even
in New Jersey, where it arrived a few months ago. Hosted by
companies with names such as SpeedDating, 8-MinuteDating, and
HurryDate, this cut-to-the-chase approach is designed to help
singles make as many potential connections in as short a time as
possible - long enough to know if there's "chemistry," short enough
to avoid an interminable blind date.
"I'm not a big bar person, I don't have a lot of pickup lines,
and I don't like screaming over music," a Norwood 32-year-old, whose
name tag reads only Jeff#714, says at a recent 8-MinuteDating
session at a Morristown bar. "I've been on some blind dates where
you're stuck the whole evening, unless you're a jerk and you ditch
her right after the date begins. This way, there's no hurt feelings
if it doesn't work out, and you've wasted only eight minutes."
Before the starting bell rings at Jimmy's Haunt, Jeff scans the
Wall Street Journal while glancing surreptitiously at the women
wafting by. The night's event - at $29 a head - is for 25- to
35-year-olds, and the conversations during their brief dates wander
all over the place.
"I don't have many interests, I'm a couch potato, and I don't
like to go out much," one man tells a woman with a barely restrained
grin. "Nah, I'm only kidding."
A few tables away, a couple heads in another direction:
She: "... That was before I got divorced."
He: "Hmmm. Are you more protective since then?"
Accelerated dating sessions like these were conceived a few years
ago by a Los Angeles rabbi worried about the skyrocketing rates of
interfaith marriages. He wanted to find a way to help local Jews
find partners within the faith - fast.
Since then, SpeedDating and its spinoffs have become an industry,
spawning in Born Again enclaves, gay and lesbian communities, and
the secular, heterosexual mainstream. The company that hosted the
Morristown session, for example, started in Boston a year ago, but
holds events across the country - in New York, Seattle, Houston,
Denver, and Miami, among other cities. At each event, the company
guarantees that participants will meet someone they want to date, or
are invited to the next event for free.
These collective blind dates - some offering three-minute
sessions with 25 people in one night - are held at bars,
coffeehouses, and even fluorescent-lit bagel shops. The HBO series
"Sex and the City" weighed in on the trend when Miranda, one of the
four lead characters, tried speed dating - and bombed out when she
told her assigned dates she was a lawyer. The next round, she told
men that she was a stewardess. They were riveted.
On the back of each person's scorecard is a list of suggested
icebreakers. ("If you had more money than you could spend, how would
you spend your time?") There's also space for private reminders, to
distinguish Date #1 from Date #8. One woman jotted: "Date 1:
cute/funny. Date 2: romantic/fun. Date 3: Internet creep."
Although the permutations vary, the ground rules for these
evenings are typically the same: no asking anyone for their last
name, phone number, or a date. Just note on your scorecard the first
name and ID number of those you want to date, then cast your ballot
online and wait for the computer matchmaker to tell you if the
interest is mutual. If it is, the computer spits out phone numbers
or e-mail addresses. The setup works, too, when the interest isn't
mutual: The person being turned down avoids a humiliating
face-to-face rejection; the person doing the spurning doesn't have
to craft a delicate rebuff.
Snap judgments notwithstanding, participants say rapid dating has
plenty of other advantages. Chief among them: It's fast and
relatively painless.
"I'm not one to go up to a girl and say, 'Hey baby,'Ÿ" says
John#733, a 35-year-old from Union County. "This seems easier. Ever
since college ended, it's been hard to meet people. Most of my
friends have long since gotten married. I'm a construction manager
in New York City now, so I don't meet a lot of women on the job
either."
Four dates into the evening is intermission, when participants
can mingle freely, jotting down the names and ID numbers of anyone
who catches their fancy. If the interest turns out to be mutual, the
computer will pass on that contact information, too.
But approaching a stranger can be awkward, even in a setting
designed to break through dating hurdles. So while a few people
mingle, most in the room look as if they're back at their junior
high dance, with men over here, women over there. Friends and
newfound acquaintances gather with their own gender, at the bar or
in the restroom, to review the goods.
"Hey, has anyone talked to the bald guy with the black sweater?"
one woman asks a group of buddies hopefully. "Is he nice? He's
really cute."
As it turned out, no one had "dated" him that evening.
"Why don't you go find him now?" someone suggests.
"I'm too scared to just go up and talk to him!" she says. "I just
keep hoping he'll be one of my next four dates."
Someone else describes another fellow.
"Oh, that guy?" a woman says. "I had him as [an assigned] date.
Avoid him. He's kind of weird."
Forty-eight hours later, the computer results were in: Of the 48
men and women who bared their souls, however briefly, 11 found
unrequited love that night - or at least unrequited interest - but
24 others found a match interested in a second meeting.
That date, presumably, would last more than eight minutes.
Staff Writer Ruth Padawer's e-mail address is
padawer@northjersey.com
NJ NEWS