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Speed dating: A first-time experience

Sarah from MelbourneThe world of dating is a frightening place. A place that makes you do crazy things. Like think speed dating is a good idea …

Now when I say speed dating, I don't mean a date that involves a lot of running around or cute couples roller-blading along the streets a rubber neck pace hand in hand (blurgh). I mean the phenomenon that pits a group of single girls with a group of single guys and you get an eight-minute date with each of them.

Eight minutes to meet your soul mate? I don't think so. But eight minutes to have a few laughs and maybe meet someone nice … that was the lure for me and my housemate. We were fed up with bemoaning the fact that all the good guys have gone off on some holiday somewhere and decided to be pro-active. The fact we were promised yummy canapés for the entire evening had nothing to do with it!

Fast impressions

We went through a dating firm called "Fast Impressions"(it's only now that the company's name strikes me as both really accurate and really lame) and immediately my inbox was filled with invitations from them to events which I would delete as soon as they appeared. I'm not sad enough to go to this … I'm not sad enough to go to this…Finally after several months of these emails I caved. We gave our details, paid the fee and tried to forget about what we had done.

On February 13th driven to the location - a swanky boutique bar in South Yarra where all the beautiful people go to be seen. Or in our case, hope not to be seen by anyone we knew. We sat trembling in the car wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. And if we could get out of it quickly. A middle-aged man wearing a striped shiny shirt that was stretched tightly over his stomach headed towards the entrance. And went inside. Oh. My. God.  Now was the time to run and hide. Yet somehow we pulled it together and clinging to each other for dear life, we stepped inside.

Pleasant mix of people

Upon arrival we were greeted with a drink and offered a tray of delicious sashimi. Scouring the room Mr shiny shirt was nowhere to be seen. Instead there was a mix of twenty-something guys and girls, all dressed to impress and all looking as nervous as Emma and I felt. Soon after the night began in earnest. All of the girls were advised to find a seat and the boys would rotate around for ten eight-minute dates. Before arriving I was thinking eight minutes would feel like an eternity. I was grateful to be proven wrong.  The conversation between the guys varied from the standard "What do you do?" to discussing the joys of Disneyland.

By the end of the night I was laughing and had long forgotten my hesitancy to even enter the bar. In fact as Emma and I conferred at the bar afterwards we were even talking about going again. We took our drinks to sit outside and happened to meet some really cute guys (not part of the speed dating evening) that we had some great conversation with and maybe even a Valentine's Day Eve kiss!

Don't take it too seriously

I would most definitely recommend the experience to the uninitiated because despite our misgivings it was a load of fun and a great way of breaking up the monotonity of your normal week. Plus you never know what might happen - I think if you go into it looking for "the one" you're going to be disappointed but if you do it for a laugh, you may just find yourself smiling a lot more than you anticipated.

Sarah Robertson, Updated Feb 2008