Speed dating is a formalized
matchmaking process or
dating system whose purpose is to encourage people to meet a large
number of new people. Its origins are credited to Rabbi Yaacov Deyo of
Aish HaTorah, originally as a way to help Jewish
singles meet and marry.[1][2][3]
SpeedDating, as a single word, is a registered
trademark of
Aish HaTorah. Speed dating, as two separate words, is often
used as a generic term for similar events.
The first speed-dating event took place at Peet’s Café in
Beverly Hills in late 1998.[1]
Organization
Men and women are rotated to meet each other over a series of short
"dates" usually lasting from 3 to 8 minutes depending on the
organization running the event. At the end of each interval, the
organizer rings a bell, clinks a glass, or blows a whistle to signal the
participants to move on to the next date. At the end of the event
participants submit to the organizers a list of who they would like to
provide their contact information to. If there is a match, contact
information is forwarded to both parties. Contact information cannot be
traded during the initial meeting, in order to reduce pressure to accept
or reject a suitor to his or her face.
These events typically require advance registration, often an online
prepayment by credit card. However, speed dating service providers such
as
Slow Dating may accept a few walk-ins when needed to balance the
gender ratio. Some services make use of wait lists when signing up to
strive for exactly the same number of men and women, while others have a
more "party" atmosphere and only aim for an approximately matching
number.
There are many speed dating events now in the
United Kingdom,
Canada,
and the
United States. Many of these simply specify an age range for ladies
and gentlemen; sometimes a slightly older range is specified for men.
Many speed dating events are targeted at particular communities: for
example, LGBT
people,
polyamorists,[4]
Christians.[5]
Graduate student speed dating events are common.[6]
Practice
Some feel that speed dating has some obvious advantages over most
other venues for meeting people, such as bars,
discotheques, etc. in that everybody is purportedly there to meet
someone, they are grouped into compatible age ranges, it is
time-efficient, and the structured interaction eliminates the need to
introduce oneself. Unlike many bars, a speed dating event will, by
necessity, be quiet enough for people to talk comfortably. Speed dating
is for singles.
Participants can come alone without feeling out of place;
alternatively it is something that women who like to go out in groups
can do together.[7]
Because the matching itself happens after the event, people do not
feel pressured to select or reject each other in person. On the other
hand, feedback and
gratification are delayed as participants must wait a day or two for
their results to come in.
The
time limit ensures that a participant will not be stuck with a
boorish match for very long, and prevents participants from
monopolizing one another's time. On the other hand, a couple that
decides they are incompatible early on will have to sit together for the
duration of the round.
Most speed dating events match people at random, and participants
will meet different "types" that they might not normally talk to in a
club. On the other hand, the random matching precludes the various cues,
such as eye contact, that people use in bars to preselect each other
before chatting them up.
Online speed
dating
Several
online dating services offer online speed dating including Woome and
SpeedDate.com, where users meet online for video, audio or text
chats. The advantage of online speed dating is that users can go on
dates from home as it can be done from any internet enabled computer.
The disadvantage is people do not actually meet one another.
Scientific
research
There have been several studies of the round-robin dating systems
themselves, as well as studies of
interpersonal attraction that are relevant to these events. Other
studies found speed-dating data useful as a way to observe individual
choices among random participants.
First impressions
A 2005 study at the
University of Pennsylvania of multiple HurryDate speed dating events
found that most people made their choices within the first three seconds
of meeting. Furthermore, issues such as religion, previous marriages,
and smoking habits were found to play much less of a role than expected.
[8]
[9]
A 2006 study in
Edinburgh, Scotland showed that 45% of the women participants in a
speed-dating event and 22% of the men had come to a decision within the
first 30 seconds. It also found that dialogue concerning
travel
resulted in more matches than dialogue about
films.[10]
In a 2012 study, researchers found that activation of specific brain
regions while viewing images of opposite-sex speed dating participants
was predictive of whether or not a participant would later pursue or
reject the viewed participants at an actual speed dating event. Men and
women made decisions in a similar manner which incorporated the physical
attractiveness and likability of the viewed participants in their
evaluation.[11]
Subconscious
preferences
Malcolm Gladwell's book on split-second decision making,
Blink, introduces two professors at
Columbia University who run speed-dating events. Drs.
Sheena Iyengar and Raymond Fisman found, from having the
participants fill out questionnaires, that what people said they wanted
in an ideal mate did not match their
subconscious preferences.[12]
[13]
Olfaction and
the MHC
A 1995 study at the
University of Bern showed that women appear to be attracted to the
smell of men who have different
MHC profiles from their own, and that oral contraceptives reversed
this effect.[14]
The MHC is a region of the
human genome involved with immune function. Because parents with
more diverse MHC profiles would be expected to produce offspring with
stronger
immune systems, dissimilar MHC may play a role in sexual selection.
A speed "date" lasting several minutes should be long enough for the
MHC hypothesis to come into play, provided the participants are seated
close enough together.
Olfaction
and pheromones
The TV newsmagazine
20/20 once sent both a male and a female set of twins to a speed
dating event. One of each set was wearing
pheromones, and the ones wearing pheromones received more matches.[15]
Age and
height preference
A 2006 study at the
University of Essex and the IZA in Bonn[16]
into the relative effects of preference versus opportunity in mate
selection showed, while concluding that opportunity was more important
than preference, that a woman's age is the single most important factor
determining demand by men. Although less important than it is to men,
age is still a highly significant factor determining demand by women.
The same study found that a man's
height
had a significant impact upon his desirability, with a reduction in
height causing a decrease in desirability at the rate of 5% per inch.
Selectivity
Studies of speed dating events generally show more selectivity among
women than among men. For instance, the Penn study reported that the
average man was chosen by 34% of the women and the average woman was
chosen by 49% of the men.[8]
New studies suggest that the selectivity is based on which gender is
seated and which is rotating. This new study showed that when men were
seated and the women rotated, the men were more selective.
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090929-women-dating.html
Spin-offs
The popularity or charm of speed dating has led to at least one
offspring:
Speed Networking. A structured way of running business networking
events with the goal of making meeting potential business contacts
easier and more productive. Some speed dating companies have now started
offering free speed dating where you do not pay unless you meet somebody
you like.
Business speed dating has also been used in
China as
a way for business people to meet each other and to decide if they have
similar business objectives and synergies.[citation
needed] Speed dating offers participating investors
and companies an opportunity to have focused private meetings with
targeted groups in a compact time frame.
In popular culture
-
Frasier. "Sliding Frasiers" (2000): Frasier attends a speed
date, describing it as "all the stress and humiliation of a blind
date, times twelve."
-
Peep Show. "Jeremy's Broke" (2008): Mark goes speed dating
but has little luck: "Ohhh, Saz, she implied she might be ticking.
Maybe she did tick! Maybe the data wasn't collated correctly! Maybe
she's my hanging chad!"
-
Sex and the City. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (2000): Miranda,
the lawyer, pretends to be a stewardess at the event after telling
her first few "dates" that she is a successful lawyer scares them
off[17]
-
Providence. "The Mating Dance" (2001): Syd goes to a "speed
dating" event.[18]
-
Kath and Kim. "Gay" (2002): Kim, estranged from her husband
of 2 months, goes with her friend Sharon to a speed dating event.[19]
-
Reba. "Switch" (2002) : Reba's daughter, Cheyenne, convinces
her mother to try speed-dating.[20]
-
Monk. "Mr.
Monk Goes to the Theater" (2003):
Adrian Monk tries to talk to a suspect at a speed dating event.[21]
-
Dead Like Me. "Hurry" (2004): Daisy goes speed dating to
take the soul of one of the men participating.[22]
-
Gilmore Girls. "But Not as Cute as Pushkin" (2004): Featured
Rory's friend
Paris attempting speed dating after the death of her professor
boyfriend.[23]
-
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. "Queer Eye For The Shy Guy"
(2004): a straight man is made over to attend a speed dating party.[24]
-
60 Minutes II. "60 Minutes II" (2004): Featured speed dating
in the segment called "Love in the 21st Century"[25]
-
The Vicar of Dibley. "Happy New Year" (2005): Geraldine
Granger receives a ticket to a speed dating event for her 40th
birthday.[26]
-
Beauty and the Geek. "Episode 204" (2006): Featured speed
dating as one of the challenges faced by the "geeks".[27]
-
The
Bill. "Episode 405" (2006): Yvonne Hemmingway persuades
Honey Harman to go with her to a speed-dating event.[28]
-
The L Word. "Lifeline" (2006): Alice and Kit go to a speed
dating event.[29]
- Various
dating game shows such as
The 5th Wheel
-
Psych. "He
Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me, Oops He's Dead" (2007):
Shawn and Gus connect supposed "alien abductions" to a speed-dating
event at a local bar, and attend undercover to solve the
kidnappings.
-
The Friday Night Project. "Series 5, Episode 8 - Guest Host:
Rupert Everett" (2007): Justin Lee Collins and Alan Carr take
Rupert Everett to a
When The Music Stops speed dating event in a London bar.[30]
-
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. "Starved" (2005): When a
speed dating service is linked to three rapes, Detective Benson goes
undercover to catch the culprit.
-
Valentine[disambiguation
needed] (2000)
-
Je préfère qu'on reste amis (2005)
-
Hitch (2005)
-
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
-
Shoppen - a German movie on speed dating (2007)
-
Speed-Dating (2010)
- In the UK, the
Local Government Association with the Solent Peoples Theatre
developed "political speed dating" in 2004. Not a niche dating
event; these are run by local councils to introduce young
constituents to their representatives.[31]
- BBC,[32]
The Science of Attraction within Speed Dating
See also