I tried curated speed dating because I’ve given up on dating apps

“Getting to meet someone in real life right off the bat is incredibly useful – you get a feel for so many elements you just can’t gauge via the internet, like voice, presence and the timbre of their laugh.”

When I think of speed dating, it evokes images of a poky, dimly lit bar with a selection of corporate casual men in their thirties and forties. They have well-gelled hair, sweaty palms and the conversational prowess of a real estate agent.

Or my mind wanders to Mark Corrigan, the protagonist of Peep Show (arguably one of the funniest television shows of all time). In Season Five, Episode Three, Mark attends a speed dating event and absolutely abhors the entire experience. “Ugh, speed dating, that was horrible. No one else seemed to mind, maybe this is the future, three-minute date, three-minute fuck, three-minute marriage,” he opines in his internal monologue.

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At the end of the night – after receiving no matches – he remarks to the adjudicator, “Speed dating, I’d be better off speed skating!”. Maybe Mark was right, and I’d have a more fruitful time trying my luck at my local ice rink.

Upon raising the topic with my workmates, it became clear I was not alone in my biases. According to Fashion Journal‘s Editorial Assistant, Izzy, “Speed dating feels like an activity exclusive to members of Plenty of Fish and Christian Mingle. It’s the thing your aunty gets really into after her divorce, along with Zumba and red streaks in her chin-length bob”.

Despite this damning assessment, when a local speed dating event popped up in my work inbox, she and the rest of the Fashion Journal team were adamant I attend. And quite honestly, as someone who’s written a fair amount about modern dating and is currently on a long-term break from dating apps, speed dating has recently begun to look like the final frontier of courtship. And, being the only single woman on our team, I’ve unwittingly become the go-to guinea pig for all things dating-related.

Anyone who’s been single for a sizeable chunk of time will know that trying to meet people on the apps is a hellish experience and meeting people in real life (beyond fleeting weekend encounters and casual rendezvouses) is like finding a needle in a haystack. So what made this event stand out? 

Run by local lube brand Figr in collaboration with inner north institution 1800 Lasagne, and sponsored by sex toy store Becuming, alcohol purveyors Fin Wines and Heaps Normal, underwear label Underplants, natural condom slinger Jonny Condoms, and Birdsnake Chocolate, the event seemed curated to people like me. People who had all the aforementioned ideas about speed dating; that it was cringe, ineffective and predominantly the domain of older millennials and Gen Xers.

And really, what’s so different about chatting to twenty men for three minutes per interaction before vetoing them, compared to endlessly swiping on an app until your index finger is numb? If anything, getting to meet someone in real life right off the bat is incredibly useful – you get a feel for so many elements you just can’t gauge via the internet, like voice, presence and the timbre of their laugh.

Eloise McCullough and Eloise O’Sullivan, the founders of Figr, were in a similar spot to many twenty-somethings trying to navigate dating online when they dreamt up Heart Attack Speed Dating. “I think it’s a recent overarching feeling that everyone is over dating apps and speaking to people through a screen (including us!). So we thought it would be a really cute and fun idea to do speed dating, where people can experience genuine connection,” they tell me.

After sitting on the idea for over six months, they brought it to life with the help of 1800 Lasagne’s founder, Joey Kellock, and the aforementioned sponsors. Of course, the hurdle they encountered (a common one in the realm of speed dating, despite my visions of a room filled with masc, corporate yo-pros) is that women sign up for these events much more readily than men do.

“[A hurdle] we weren’t anticipating was getting cishet men registering/buying tickets for straight dating. We are trying to work out ways to get the word out for the next event in December,” they share. I was a little apprehensive when I saw the last-minute call out on their Instagram, asking more men to sign up. But on the day, there was an even spread of men and women, ranging from ages 27 through to 40.

Simply speeding through the dates

The ‘speed’ in speed dating is entirely accurate; at three minutes a date, you have to be fairly quick conversationally to get a feel for the person opposite you. Despite the fast pace, I felt much more energised (and efficient) navigating dating in this manner.

Everyone involved in the event did an impressive job at rebranding speed dating into something that didn’t feel cringey and desperate. With a pet nat in hand and a restaurant with just the right amount of ambience, it felt much more like ‘meeting someone at a bar’ than speed dating, which is surely how we’d all like to say we met our next lover.

I wasn’t alone in feeling enamoured with the event. The Eloises tell me they had “such an overwhelmingly good response on the day”. The attendee feedback they showed me remarked on the excellent branding and location, the generous gift bags (filled with lube, condoms and chocolate, the holy trinity of pleasure), and the way the event felt energetic but casual. “I’m really glad speed dating is back; feels way better than the apps,” said one person.

And that is what it felt like; a total rebranding of the speed dating experience, something I’ve increasingly seen happening overseas in cities like New York and London. But this is the first time I’ve seen inner north Melburnians (a notoriously picky crowd) getting on board with it. It feels like there’s a newfound appreciation for real-life interaction, something we probably have the pandemic to thank for.

“The experience was really beautiful and energising to everyone in the room. To have the opportunity to meet 20 people in a two-hour sitting is beneficial because your gut does tell you who you like in the first minute and it takes away the few weeks you would take talking to someone through an app but without the stress of organising a solo date,” the Eloises tell me.

As for the matches I made, it remains to be seen if we’ll be interested in each other past a three-minute time period. But even if nothing comes of it, the experience has made me feel hopeful about dating for the first time in a long time.

The Eloises feel the same. “With over 500 people registering their interest, we definitely know we need to move our butts and lock in future dates. So at the moment, we are planning to organise an event at the beginning of each month. The ones that are locked in for the remaining of 2022 are Queer Dating for Women and Non-Binary People on November 5, and Straight Dating on December 3.” If this is the speed dating revolution, then I’m here for it.

If you’re in Melbourne and are interested in signing up for the next speed dating events, head here.