Tell me about speed dating

[Anonymous]

I have never done this before and looking for an alternative to apps. I’m 42- live in DC and single. I found a few speed dating events on Eventbrite that I’d like to look into. Has anyone here done them? Can you share which one and how the experience worked for you?

[Anonymous]

Do you enjoy being asked the following over and over?
"How long have you been in DC?"
"What brought you to DC?"
"What do you do for work?"

If so, you'll LOVE speed dating. It's torture for me.

[Anonymous]

Are you male or female? If you are a female looking for a male, stay away. The past few events I have been to in the area are very female heavy. Hardly any men showed up.

[Anonymous]

Waste of time and money.

[Anonymous]

I’m female went to one of these events. The guys were all shorter than 5’7 except for one. Many were from out of town (1 hr drive to dmv). Most guys matched me as I was the cutest and slimmest. I went on a date with him after. He was educated, 6’2 and smart but turned out to be 6 years younger and had a very young child. Overall if you are a slim cute woman you can get 2-3 business cards from men in one evening at a high end bar or a professional gathering. I went for an even last night, two men offered to extend the evening but unfortunately one was married and the other was too old.
I find OLD more efficient to prescreen for deal breakers like age, marital status, education, height, locality

[Anonymous]

I went to one years ago (mid 20s). Granted I went to (a) support a friend and (b) figure out whether the grass was greener as I had a long-term bf who was dragging his heels, so those shaped my experience. Eveyone seemed around my age, so you’d want to screen for that. My go to question was “what have you enjoyed reading recently”. When they couldn’t answer that I switched to “what do you enjoy reading, watching, or listening to?” And when they couldn’t answer that I switched to “what’s something you enjoy?” I got very few responses and (as an introvert who enjoys talking with new people) found the whole thing profoundly strange.

[Anonymous]

Pp here - oops. Meant to say extrovert. Also, my bf and I were going through a rocky patch, and I guess the silver lining is this made me decide it was worth working on and we’ve been married 16 years.

[Anonymous]

I tried it when I was early 40s and while it was relatively fun the vast majority of men were far older and/or weird. To the extent that the event host apologized to me.

[Anonymous]

So what's the alternative to old and speed dating? I feel old is too superficial

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to one years ago (mid 20s). Granted I went to (a) support a friend and (b) figure out whether the grass was greener as I had a long-term bf who was dragging his heels, so those shaped my experience. Eveyone seemed around my age, so you’d want to screen for that. My go to question was “what have you enjoyed reading recently”. When they couldn’t answer that I switched to “what do you enjoy reading, watching, or listening to?” And when they couldn’t answer that I switched to “what’s something you enjoy?” I got very few responses and (as an introvert who enjoys talking with new people) found the whole thing profoundly strange.

Exact same thing -- it was ages ago and I went to support a work friend, who asked me to go and then got all anxious about it because I'm super attractive and outgoing and she isn't. She needn't have been worried, I think she matched more men than I did. I just remember the whole thing being super awkward and there was literally no one I truly wanted to go out with. And all that smiling and super-friendly small talk with people you know you have no interest in is exhausting. Most of the men were in the 5/10 or 6/10 range. A lot of professional women (my friend and I are lawyers). I think the age of the women skewed slightly higher than the age of the men, and I think the earning power of the women skewed slightly higher than that of the men as well. And I think a lot of the men weren't necessarily wanting high-powered women. I think I wrote down a few people as "matches" because I felt like I had to, but then I think I only matched with one, which means only one of them had picked me. I didn't go out with the guy I "matched" with -- he was a 5 and I was an 8 or so (in my mind, anyway, lol).