Plentyoffish dating forums are a place to meet singles and get dating advice or share dating experiences etc. Hopefully you will all have fun meeting singles and try out this online dating thing... Remember that we are the largest free online dating service, so you will never have to pay a dime to meet your soulmate. Some concepts may never quite succeed with our generation. Example: I have an iPod long story but don't use it. I'm wondering if speed dating is one of these concepts. I'd have to do the variety where the gal gets to sit in one spot and the fellas come to her - because if I had to circulate, my whole three minutes would be consumed by getting from one seat to another! I have spinal disorders and standing up is one set of laborious efforts, then moving at snail's pace from one place to another with walker or cane for assistance is another chapter. Actually I imagine just being seen ambulating would win me a big fat zero from the speed dating crowd. Has ANYONE in this age group found speed dating to be a successful way to meet people? Specially to be on a one to one alone. It AIN'T going to happen. I believe for a man, it could be alot different, there isn't that much of the fear factor involved. Sure there some women out there that could kick some royal booty, but I think that % is fairly low. I could be wrong. I also think speed dating was started in the larger populated areas where hussle and bussle are the main cause for the lack of connections. Here in the country, people get turned off just by the word SPEED! Personally, I wouldn't even consider it, for me at least. Specially to be on a one to one alone. It AIN'T going to happen. How much can you learn about a person in 3 minutes? Jack the Ripper could probably have come off as charming for 3 minutes. I also like to email a lot and know something about the person before I even meet them; then it's like meeting a friend, not a total stranger. If it was pure eye contact - that might work pretty good. Put everyone in a size appropriate room with a number on them. Have a card with all the numbers and a 1 2 3 beside the number. When the time is up - hand in the card with your number on it. If a guy and a gal both gave each other the 3 - give them both the contact info or........... THEN do the face to face questions. I am a hard core Apple guy and have been since 1981. I don't have an iPhone because you are locked in to one phone company. I am about 5,000,000 mile away from being any kind of fad follower. I still wear Levis and consider Wrangers whimpy lol. I'd never attend a wholesale auction of people... I find the whole speed dating idea repulsive. Musical Chairs went out of fashion a long time ago... Try being yourself for 3 minutes at a time with some new face jumping in front of you... It is as close to a brothel situation any decent woman may ever come to.. It is a demeaning way for people to meet.. Personally a tooth pulling ranks higher on my list of great ideas than speed dating. Save your money for the next POF singles cruise gang.. Girlflower Personally, I wouldn't even consider it, for me at least. Specially to be on a one to one alone. It AIN'T going to happen. I'd think speed dating would be a dangerous endeavour. Imagine the G-force against your face? Our cheeks would be blown behind our heads... I opt for safer methods of socialising. I can't say I have done the speed dating thing, yet, I can't say I won't either. It's like being a comedian, and having 3 minutes to make someone laugh. It's, calling it as you see it. HHHHMMMMMMM I mean really, these thnigs go for an hour or 2, but is that the end of the evening? I speed dated once. Met her at the local coffee shop. She took one look at me. I took one look at her. Even when people send email for weeks, they make snap decisions in the blink of an eye when they meet. If you go bar-hopping or clubbing, most women won't give you 3 minutes of conversation to impress them, they've made up their minds before you even open your mouth. Speed dating actually gives a guy a fair chance to say something intelligent before he's condemned by his PayLess shoes and Target wardrobe. Well, here's your opportunity for just such a meet. I think a lot of people assume they will be forced to follow some sort of dating script. Why do you think of it as an interrogation? You don't have to ask a single question. You can just sit and stare for three minutes. You can talk about the weather. Considering that most people will scan a room and decide ahead of time which people they'd REALLY like to chat with, why bother going through the routing with the others? Just say hello, smile a lot and pull out your PDA, they'll get the message. Or take the opportunity to get info on things OTHER than your date. Ask them about the service that set up the speed dating --- what's their reputation? Ask them about their impressions of other speed daters. Use you time to best advantage, there no need to force yourself to learn about every person in the room. The point is to have fun and make use of the opportunity to sharpen your social skills. I'm asure if you went to an event and was atracted to someone, you might just tie a ribbon round your finger to remind you to see him laterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well first off, I'm trying to establish if it DOES work - in our age group. In the city where I live, the first speed dating events were for two age groups - 18 to 25 and 25 to 35. Only later did they add boomers groups - and I haven't been to one. I asked someone who had gone if they thought it was any good and they said no, just a waste of money. So have you tried it? After getting off the food line, most people would stand and wait for a table while there were empty chairs everywhere. It just so happened that groups of men and women would ban together and grab a table for themselves and seat 7 or 8 at tables that held 10. Being that I was given a grant to go there and had unlimited spending for tuition, I took as many classes as I could schedule and most days I only had 30 minutes to eat and get to the next class. Seeing those empty seats and waiting for a table seemed dumb to me and I would approach a table full of women and ask it the chair was taken. If they said no, I'd sit there and have a table full of women to talk with. After a few months of this I knew who I could get along with and who would turn their nose up. Now, would I pay to attend an event where I could meet a dozen women in a serial fashion for 3 minutes at a time, probably not but my form of speed dating always produced interesting women I could have fun with on dates. It was the best event out of the 7 I've attended but apparently I have the worst results. I'd date 6 of the 9 women I met. Previous events I've averaged around 25%. Usually I decide that I'll accept the top 20-25%, regardless but I had a couple of events where 10% was a stretch. But OTOH, there was an age skew. Last night the average age was perhaps five to eight years younger than I've met before. I was one year over the max age for men. So it could an age issue. And women are always put off by travelling. And they might be put off by my profile. But those have been constants for every previous speed date. I'm not sorry I got divorced. At least I'm having some fun now with no responsibility. But I understand better why people stay in marginal marriages. It's not worth the effort to replace what you had with the same thing. I meet quite a few guys like me. Forties, fifties, travel a lot. I met three this week in San Jose. Then, give those people time to talk, ask questions, etc. I'm going to recommend it for our next POF gathering in Indy. I work with elderly and heres hoping there will be speed dating when Im a senior LOLand no Im not into denial and whats up with these guys trashing women for acting how they feel not what the numbers say...???? On a much more serious note.. I wonder how much would be gained by the eyes meeting on a positive note.. Wouldn't that then shine through the eyes? Then it would still come down to vocalizing.. I don't know if I would be able to say..
