SPEED DATING IN CHICAGO, IL

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Posted by Daniel B. on Sep. 5, 2009 in General Rambling

I have always found speed-dating a fascinating concept from the very beginning.  It wasn't just that we knew that it worked as a business model, and helped people find relationships - it was also that it's an immensely interesting social development.

Here is the piece that I mind the most intriguing.  Where did speed-dating come from?  By this, I don't mean who ran the first events - certainly, in the States this is claimed by the Jewish singles group Aish, but I believe I read somewhere that it originated in Japan.

What I really mean is, why did speed-dating appear?  There was no reason why speed-dating wasn't possible 20 years ago or 200 years ago.  It's not a matter of technology as would be the case with online dating - this came into being once internet usage was mainstream, and this is true of many products and services.  The reason they exist is because, as well as the consumer interest, there is the means to provide it.

So I think speed-dating is unique in that, if speed-dating is here to stay, then there must have been brought about by a fundamental shift in the way we think about dating.  This doesn't sound like a very insightful comment - we all know that the way we date has changed, but the degree to which it has changed is demonstrated by speed-dating.  A product, one that will probably be here in 50 years in some form, and one that could have been reproduced 50 years ago but wasn't - that's unusual.

Jen's opinion is that online dating prepared us for speed-dating.  In other words, online dating was the fundamental shift, with people realizing it was effective, and that its one serious gap was the lack of easy face-to-face contact.  Speed-dating became the natural next step in a progressive and open dating culture.

My feeling is that speed-dating works because it has really always been around, just not in the structured format we have now.  If you think back to formal or village dances of hundreds of years ago, at regular and frequent intervals people would change dance partners.  Throughout time, we have coordinated brief introductions with many different people, as it has always been seen as an effective and efficient way to begin the process of building relationships.

This is a topic I'm particularly interested in, yet have no illusions that my opinion is anything more than just an opinion - I would love to hear back from people who have additional comments or opposing ideas.