The Need For Speed (Part Two)

When you actually have the 'dates' in speed dating, it seems to be the convention to have the girls remain seated at individual tables and get the men to rotate around the room till they’ve met each one. On my night, there were ten gentleman (and ten ladies) and I got eight minutes with each but depending on the company you sign up with this can range from three to ten. Eight minutes I found was pretty good. A little short for some perhaps but for others, assuming you get someone who is prepared to talk and not merely look at you like a stunned mullet or freeze up like a deer caught in headlights, you'd only have to crap on for about four minutes. Most of us I think can do this. If you can't I suppose you could always resort to reciting the words of Christmas carols to fill in time and hope that you scare them off or something.

Whether you decide to ‘prepare’ for the dates or not is entirely up to you though. It is advised however, that you don't give out too much personal information (as in where you work, who you work for, your full name etc.) just in case there really are freaks and you attract a stalker. They like to put it in terms of actually having to personally reject someone or be rejected but really, I think this basically just eliminates the freak factor from your concerns. As far as I could tell though, everyone was quite normal and most people seemed to take that advice on with a grain of salt. A lot of people didn't actually tell me who they worked for but they did give me a lot of personal details. And then there were all the other things that people told me....

I will admit to being a little nervous on the night and I know I waffled on about nothing much to a few people but I would hope I am able to discern things that people really don't want to know about me. For example I don’t believe I would announce to someone that I had a post-viral condition. If I was a doctor this may be a fair analysis of my medical state but there is a time and place for these things. In front of someone you're hoping to impress is never the place. Hindsight is a wonderful thing however and I guess it can be quite nerve-racking to converse with so many new people in such a short time (did you know by the way that you can actually get date coaching to help you out in these situations at a completely exorbitant rate?).

Anyway, amongst my ten potential suitors there those who treated the whole night like an extended version of twenty questions, others who didn't really want to talk about themselves and of course, guys who only wanted to talk about themselves. There was a guy that leaned right across the table like he wanted to crawl into my lap (can I just saw EW!) and the occasional one who was a relief and a laugh. All up I guess I just went with the flow and found that I did genuinely like some of the people I met.