How long would a date last in general? You might expect anything over an hour for sure! And that’s why the concept of speed dating isn’t just mindboggling but also pretty interesting. In fact, a batch of 12 girls and 12 guys might have made history on Sunday. Well, almost. Because they were part of the first ever “speed meet” held in the city. For starters, speed dating is where you meet around 10 singles (in this case 12), and “date” each person for six minutes exactly, before you move on to date the next person!
It might seem a really impossible and tricky task to decide in six minutes if a person meets your fancy. But as one of the attendees tells us, “That’s undeniably true! But if you think about it, would it take more than six minutes to actually know whether someone is your kind or not? Instead of going on countless number of dates that eventually lead to nowhere, this is at least a start.” But of course, there are the slow beginners. A guy laments about how a girl he thought he could strike chemistry with was pretty shy to speak up. “She was shy, and took time to speak up. By the time we started an actual conversation, the time was up! I really wanted to punch my fist into that table,” he jokes, as he adds, “In my list, I did give her a ‘Yes’, let’s see what she thought of me.”
While this clearly is a dating platform, and many were in to see if they meet that dream partner, the deal with the urban dating scene is many come with an open mind, which was the case here. A girl talks about how she landed at this venue to make friends, if not anything else, because she is new to town.
There were some who were looking to expand their social circle with a one on one interaction with real people, away from chat rooms of dating apps, while the oganisers take the responsibility of your privacy! But that holds true too because just as the event’s Delhi based organiser Rahul Maheshwari shares, “I personally think swiping right or left just looking at a person’s picture is really shallow, and judgemental too. On this platform, people meet each other first and get a basic understanding of a personality before deciding if they want to meet again.”
But one wonders what the organisers aim to achieve if they aren’t able to make “successful pairings”. “There aren’t many venues for people to meet other than dating apps. A virtual conversation doesn’t make the cut in establishing a connection. We make a conscious effort to bring together individuals who are serious. The participants can come to us if there is any problem they face with the candidates, even after the meet.”
