Olivia Attard tries out a new way to meet the opposite sex and gives it a 10 on 10 for a great night out
The concept is great: a guaranteed meeting of a whole load of new men in one evening. Not like when you go out, each time with the background thought of whether ‘tonight will be the night’ and you’re lucky if you even get to chat with someone new.
Why has speed dating caught on so well since it was invented? I suppose it fills a void, creates a supply for the demand. It’s not so much that we haven’t got time to let nature take its course; it’s just not that easy to meet new guys, never mind have a conversation with them. Speed dating is more of a clever way of upping the odds of meeting Mr Right. Instead of having a friend match-make by organizing a dinner for you to meet her single friends, you let someone else do it, on a bigger scale. I didn’t hesitate too much when I saw the advert and soon after received an email saying that the night was on. All systems go. Wow, and then the nerves began.
I was ever so slightly nervous because as I started to plan what I was going to wear, for the first time in my life I felt like I would be competing against other women. And another thought was that I was going to be on display, like some kind of wares, almost for sale, to see whether anyone would be interested in me. It reminded me of what the coming-out season must have been like for the debutantes, where young ladies of a certain social status would go to all the balls, trying to find a husband. The long version of speed dating, I guess!
No stranger to blind dates, I started to imagine that this would be like a blind date, but even better. There was only going to be five minutes with each guy, and there would be quite a few men, so I’d be having multiple, serial blind dates…
The Spark speed dating event was held at Bridge Bar in Valletta and it was supposed to start promptly at 7.45pm.
Unfortunately some people turned up late which delayed things a bit. But on the bright side, we had chance to mingle before the event itself, and get a taster, so to speak, and even to introduce ourselves to people of the same sex.
This event was for nine men and nine women, which made for a cosy atmosphere. The women sat with their backs to the walls while the men took turns to sit down at the tables. We had five minutes with each person, which seems like a short time but actually felt just right. If the conversation was faltering there wasn’t too much dead air, and if you were enjoying the chat, then it only made you even keener to get to know them again.
Everyone had a name tag with a number on it, so that you could have a reference for your marking sheet. For each date, you have to indicate whether you want to see them again. Only if there is a match between the couples will you receive the other person’s email details. This means that you may have all the guys fancying you, but if you don’t indicate that you want to see any of them again, you’d never know. It works well because it takes away any doubt of whether there is mutual attraction.
Just before it kicked off, I realized that I hadn’t thought about what I was going to ask the guys. Normally I just let conversations take their natural course, but I wondered whether perhaps I should have prepared some kind of interview-type question that would reveal as much about them as possible in a short time. Luckily the organizers put a load of questions on the tables that you can use if you’re stuck, questions like ‘what’s your greatest passion’, ‘what was the best trip you’ve ever been on’. I did resort to them once or twice, and it even became like a kind of game and helped lighten the tension. Not that there really was any, you could see straight away that everyone was enjoying themselves. In fact it was much more fun than the New Year’s Eve party I had been to, in the sense that we were all laughing and smiling and making the most of the fact that we were there to meet new people. It gave us all something in common which we could talk about.
There was a short break half way, which again was good in that it allowed you to stretch your legs, take a breather and mingle. People asked each other ‘how’s it going’ in a caring way.
At the end of the dates, we all handed in our sheets to Steve and Kat and funnily enough, didn’t run away. Most of us ended up having another drink (or two or three), chatting and getting to know each other till late. I felt that even if I hadn’t met Mr Right, or even Mr Maybe, I still potentially made eight new male friends that night and a few female ones too, those that I had spoken to.
The organisers are a friendly young couple, Kathryn Baldacchino and Steve Hili who have experience in holding speed dating events in Australia. They started organising Spark Speed Dating events here because they felt that there was a great need for friendly, social events where people can simply mix and mingle with other singles.
So far they have held an event for 20s to early 30s, another for 30s to early 40s and one for the 50’s+. The response has been good – most people go with a sense of humour and look at it as a way of socialising and meeting new people, without too much seriousness about it. They say that there is certainly no ‘type’ of person that attends. People sometimes tell them that they were hesitant to attend because they assumed that a certain type of person would be there – and are later amazed that this wasn’t the case at all. They have had quite a few ‘matches’ over the events and have very good responses via email from the participants telling them that they enjoyed themselves and would come again.
I can imagine that it’s normally daunting for a guy to approach a woman and risk being ridiculed, so this must have been a safer way of breaking the ice without having to use Dutch courage. You can go on your own, which you might not normally do because you don’t need a friend to lean on. I can honestly say that it was a really fun night out, and I recommend it to single people who aren’t afraid to try something new.
Steve and Kathryn can be contacted on [email protected]
Next event: 11 February