37. Speed Dating

Speed dating!

Jewel, Covent Garden

When we were making our to do list, we both admitted to being curious about speed dating so it had to go on the list.  I'm not sure what we were thinking and I'm fairly sure that we were seduced by American rom-coms into believing that attractive people really do speed date.

As the day of the speed dating approached, our doubts gradually crept up on us and by the time the day came around, we'd decided we needed a good amount of Dutch courage before we could actually go through with it.  So off we went to Benito's Hat in Covent Garden for naked burritos (yummy) and a couple of margaritas while we practiced our 'interested' faces.  Not sure either of us really pulled it off...

Interested / horrified

Interested / not listening at all 

Anyway two margaritas down and it was time to go and scope out the speed dating, so off we went to Jewel which was conveniently just down the road and also had a happy hour on.  There were no cocktail menus in sight so we opted for classic mojitos.  Cocktails in hand, we retreated into a corner to try and work out where the speed dating was without having to ask anyone.

Round three (ding ding!)

It seemed that everyone was headed downstairs so down we went...  only to discover that everyone down there already had a scorecard and name badge and it STILL wasn't obvious who we should ask.  After standing awkwardly for a while, one of the girls sat next to us put us out of our misery and revealed that she was one of the organisers and they were 'looking for two girls'.  Name badges issued, all that remained was to grab another margarita each and occupy our dimly lit bar stools.

Unfortunately getting the margaritas took a little longer than the 5 minutes they allowed us so by the time we sat down we were already a couple of minutes into date number 1 - oops!  Not to worry though, there were 15 more to come...

... and come they did.  16 dates total and not a single one either of us found even remotely attractive.  Some at least were relatively normal, a couple even managed a little banter - but most were strange and some positively depressing.

For our part, Anett mastered the art of 3 minute dating much better than I did and came away with some interesting details about some of our dates.  I stuck to small talk and as a result had to explain my job 16 times in a row.  I did, however, manage to fill out my score card in a little more detail... but only a little.  I also got the first guy's name wrong.

Score cards: probably more useful when you have time to fill them out

As soon as the event finished, we found ourselves in the middle of the strangest gang of single men that has ever been assembled.  A couple of them were good fun and we would probably have stayed on for another drink were it not for the appearance of Super Creepy Spanish Guy who spent the whole of my 3 minutes staring at my breasts and then went on to tell Anett she was the only attractive girl he'd met all night and he 'wanted to take her home and make her a proper margarita'.  There was no choice but to escape via the bathroom - but not before one of the more normal guys took a photo for us.

Post speed dating smiles of relief

Clearly we needed a drink.  We headed across the road to the Porterhouse and before we had finished our first beer, boom!  We were approached by a young hipster from Brighton who had just moved to London and was there with his two friends.  All three boys were the right side of 30, in good jobs and most importantly...  not weird.  We had another drink with them and then it was very definitely time to go home.

Unfortunately we'll never know how many matches we could have made that night as you have to like someone in order for that to happen.  The people at Speed Dater Online do operate a guarantee so we are now entitled to a free ticket for another session of speed dating in the next three months.  We won't be taking them up on that particular offer!

Ooooh...  popular!

Here's my rather drunken review of the night:

Speed dating list trumps ratings!

Cost: 0/5 - we paid £20 and bought our own drinks when normally we get into bars for free and other people buy us drinks.  Not good economy.

Originality: 4/5.  Never before.  Never again.

Fun factor: 2/5.  Good burritos, good margaritas, some laughs but ultimately a traumatic and terrifying experience.