In Which I Conduct a Social Experiment

Or more to the point, in which I go speed dating.

You heard me.

A couple of weeks ago two colleagues and I were talking about the merits of being single, and somehow we got onto the topic of how to flirt. None of us could decide on how to define flirting exactly, so as a joke we Googled 'flirting workshop'. We actually found one! Only they cost over £200 for a day course.

Two hundred smackeroos of my hard-earned cash to learn how to flirt? Seriously?

Anyway, one thing led to another and we ended up agreeing it would be jolly good fun if we signed up for speed dating, which happened a couple of nights ago, on Saturday night. In the end neither of my colleagues made it, one having never actually gotten around to booking and the other having to go to a friend's wedding. Thankfully (really, really thankfully) I found a couple of other people to go with instead.

Off we trotted to the bar, making sure we were intentionally ten minutes late to avoid being the first ones there. Of course, we were the first ones there. I was rather amused and more than slightly worried that the doormen (or rather doorladies) began to ask for our IDs, but then told us not to worry and go straight in and downstairs to the event bar when they realised we were there for the speed dating event.

So if we're just here to down booze we need to be ID-ed, but if we're here to meet a bunch of random strangers whilst downing booze at the same time it's a-okay? Huh.

Even though we were the first to the scene, we were very quickly followed by more ladies ("What did I tell you? The girls always arrive first," I heard one say to her friend). Soon enough the place was full: twenty girls, eighteen guys (because two guys had chickened out failed to turn up). It was a relatively small room, and to my slight discomfort I realised that dates would be sitting side-by-side on sofas rather than face-to-face like an interview. Scratch that, I'm not sure which is worse. Anyway, the rules were that girls stayed where they were and guys rotated, often having to squeeze onto the sofas by sliding past the fixed tables (I was particularly glad I didn't have to move as I'm not known for my natural poise and grace).

The bell rang. Off we went: four minutes per person and *DINGDINGDING*, time to move on to the next.

Speed dating is surprisingly exhausting, even if you're a talkative person. As a writer, I'm quite contented to sit for hours on end and type or scrawl, and as for the quality of my writing- I've been told I could convince anyone to do anything, on paper. Talking... not so much. Some people are blessed with a silver tongue- mine's more like one of those roll-up party horns. As a result, when I talk- especially about the things I'm interested about- I think I sound rather manic.

Combine manic speed-talking with a whole load of wild hand gestures and an increasingly shrill voice as I struggled to compete with the growing din of a large crowd with booming club music in a small room, and you'll get a general feel for how I was coming off.

Combine this with my unbridled geekiness, then, well...

I joked with some other friends that I wasn't worried about meeting weirdos: I'D be the weirdo. I joked that there would be guys going home later that night, going back to their mates and saying "Yeah... there was this one really crazy girl there..." By the time I left, I really felt like I'd completed my own prophecy. The confident guys either humoured me or, in one case, acted physically repelled by me (although the latter wasn't much liked by my friends either because of his slightly arrogant air), and the shy guys were overwhelmed by me.

Without further ado, here were some of the most memorable moments of the evening on my end.

The Good:

One guy asked me what the most exciting thing I'd done in the last couple of years was (I replied I went to Go Ape). This was a nice change from the 'so what do you do?' or 'is this your first time speed dating?' questions I'd been asked. As the minutes went by the subject of me once doing a lot of battle reenactment came up, and I was impressed that he actually asked what century reenactment my group did and what kind of sword I had. I asked him what TV and books he liked, and just as he replied 'Game of Thrones' the bell went *DINGDINGDING* before I had a chance to enthuse. Ah well- such is the nature of speed dating. I scribbled 'Paddy- Game if Thrones' hurriedly as a prompt on my 'score sheet'.

As soon as this other guy sat down, I decided to ask him what the most geeky thing about him was. To my puzzlement and amusement, he stared at me, blinked and suddenly replied "You know what, screw this. I'm liking your blue dress and black cardi thingy combo." I laughed and said thanks, but I still expected him to answer the question. When I asked him what he did, he only replied "All in good time." As our conversation progressed it became very apparent that there were very few geeky bones in this guy's body, and he even asked me "So would you force any unsuspecting boyfriend into wearing a costume to Comicon with you?" (My answer was of course not- one man's cosplay is another man's form of cruel and unusual punishment). The bell went *DINGDINGDING*, and just as he got up he shot back in my direction, "And to answer your earlier question I work in finance." "Oh! I'm sorry" I said, and thankfully he laughed. I scribbled 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon' down.

The Bad:

The arrogant guy- as he slid across the sofa, I joked at how they could have picked better seating arrangements for a bunch of strangers meeting each other for the first time, wanting to make the best impression. I wasn't expecting the single raised eyebrow I got, paired with a very chilly, "Actually, I thought I did that rather well." I laughed as if he were joking, but he just continued to stare ever so slightly down his nose at me and repeated, " Wouldn't you say I did that well?" I rolled my eyes and said something like 'fine then'. We ended up talking about food for the rest of the few minutes left (at least food is something I can talk about), with him mentioning one of these fancy places that has no menu and me struggling to remember the name of one of my favourite Malaysian restaurants as he boredly stared at me as I struggled. It was a rather long four minutes. At least my friends all had a similar experience. To be honest, he was acting like actually being there made him sick. You know what the craziest thing is? The friend he came with happened to be Game Of Thrones Paddy.

When one guy asked me if I'd been speed dating before and I said no, he countered with, "You have such a lovely, innocent face for someone who lies so well!" I covered my discomfort by a show of obvious mock-offence.

The Mad:

That'd be me, then. Aside from mentioning I owned my own chain mail, lost two years of my life to World of Warcraft and have been to London Comicon dressed in Stark Trek uniform, I also occasionally asked "What would you rather be: a pineapple or a papaya?" Curiously everyone I asked answered pineapple, and everyone said it was because of their hair. I also asked "Star Wars or Star Trek?" on one occasion.

The Interesting:

One guy's English wasn't particularly polished, and it turned out that he came from a small village in Italy and had moved to London to seek his fortune as an artist (or rather seek a career- few ever make a fortune in art). Not quite believing him I asked him questions like what was his favourite medium, period of style and favourite artists, and to my astonishment he was totally genuine. I didn't put him down as a 'Yes' or a 'Friend', but all the same when I wished him well in the city at the end of the four minutes, I meant it wholeheartedly.

So would I do it again? Maybe. Not in a long while- it was more a novelty and a fun night out for me, and I certainly didn't expect to meet any knights in shining armour. They say speed dating is a numbers game, but I never was that great at probability in maths.

Anyway, there are several major flaws to speed dating, the major one in my opinion being the time limit. Sure it's handy if you get someone you don't get on with, but what about people like Game of Thrones guy? There were a few more like him, like a slightly shy-er guy who I found out when we had just seconds to go that he played jazz piano (interesting to me, being a qualified pianist), and another even shy-er guy who was just beginning to come out of his shell before he had to move on.

The second biggest flaw is more of a personal one: I'm a geek girl. I'm pretty niche. Even worse, by a lot of 'geek guy' standards I'm not 'geeky enough' (sod them, is what I say). Speed dating events in my age range are often for city professionals who are more into sports than sci-fi. So I can't really win. All I can do is do what I do best, and be myself as hard as I possibly can.

One question I really wanted to ask people but never got around to was, "What do you enjoy most about being single?" I could give a whole list of reasons why I love being single- which is probably why I only ticked the 'Friend' box on my score sheet for some of the guys, and no 'Yes'es for dating. Dating and boyfriends can wait- I'm too busy geeking out.

So. After the event you go home, and in the next couple of days enter in your ticks online to see if anyone has matched up with you. Did I get any friend matches afterwards? Well, I've just gotten around to checking and yes, I have two: one is the shy-er guy, and the other, most amusingly, is 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon'. 'Game If Thrones Paddy' has yet to input his scores.

I did find 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon' quite fun though, and thought we'd probably actually get on rather well despite the culture difference (or else it would have been rather silly for me to tick 'Friend' if I didn't mean it, wouldn't it?). In fact, halfway through writing this I got a pop-up email alert telling me that he's sent me a message. I haven't read it yet- it's way past my bedtime and my brain has already made as much social interaction as it can take for a few days. I'll take a look and maybe reply tomorrow. This could be entertaining...