21 Dec Palm Beach Post | Speed Dating: Awkward but better than wasting time

A person can talk a good game via messaging and post some really good, I mean really good, photos on their profile. But there’s nothing like meeting someone in person. On a six-minutes speed date, you may not learn everything about a person, but you can take note on how he made you feel, his energy, his presence.

By Corvaya Jeffries, social media reporter for The Palm Beach Post.
Original Article on www.palmbeachpost.com
 

Dating. First traditional, candlelit dinner turned into desktop-instant-messaging. Then that turned into swiping for love all too fast. Where I am in dating, as you know, is not sophisticated enough to jump onto eHarmony or Match.com. Why sophisticated, you ask?

I know a woman who made a profile on Match, dated a few men until she learned enough about them, wrote down their pros and cons to narrow her selection to one, then married that one. The pair turned into a family of three. Sophisticated.

So while I’m not quite ready for Match, I am definitely not doing Tinder again. The app brands itself as the place for more than just dating; rather, it’s “a powerful tool to meet people you otherwise never would have met.” But let’s be real.

There are two kinds of people on Tinder. The ones who are really looking for love in a profile pic — they should quit — and the ones just looking to hook up. I was neither, so my friendship with Tinder was short lived. Account. Deactivated.

If sites like Match are no longer a thing and Tinder’s just nasty, am I left to hope and pray I meet the love of my life in the checkout at Publix?

Not exactly. Pre-Dating Speed Dating is a company that hosts monthly speed dating events in 70 cities in the US and Canada. I gave it a try, and let me tell you: While it has its cons, it is SO much better than living that app life.

Here’s why:

Because Coffee Meets Bagel is time consuming.

On Coffee Meets Bagel, you wait for a cup of coffee to like you (you’re a bagel). Then you wait for the app to send you a notification saying that coffee likes you. Then you wait for coffee to message you.

What? Yes. Days of waiting for a conversation to even start. Then imagine that anticipated conversation going absolutely nowhere. Smh. Those who do it more than twice have a lot more patience than I do.

On a speed date, you’re rushed through six minutes of conversation, but by minute three, you’ll know if ol’ boy (or girl) is a potential second date. And vice versa.

Because there’s too many damn people to swipe through on Tinder.

Online dating has become an endless finger game of swiping photos. We already beat ourselves up about scrolling through Instagram to pass the time instead of doing something productive, or even good for our souls. So spending an hour and a half swiping left on Tinder before you find someone who may be a potential first and second date (not likely) is just a complete waste of time.

Not to mention, you do know that you’re basing each swipe solely on appearance right? Not judging — just reminding.

While date rotation at a speed dating event happens quickly, you’re at least able to take notes on a person’s approach, conversation and overall first impression. Not just their looks.

Because if you’re a woman, you can never be too safe.

Your friend tells you to send a text with your location when you’re on the way to meet someone you’ve never met. It’s so she knows exactly where you are (or were) if something went wrong. That’s a good friend.

After messaging a cutie back and forth for a couple of weeks, you decide on a public place to meet and plan your own transportation to and from the spot. That’s a smart move.

Still, you can never be too safe, which brings me to the next — and possibly the most important — reason why you should consider speed dating over online app dating…

Because vibes don’t lie.

A person can talk a good game via messaging and post some really good, I mean really good, photos on their profile. But there’s nothing like meeting someone in person.

On a six-minutes speed date, you may not learn everything about a person, but you can take note on how he made you feel, his energy, his presence. It’s an incomparable opportunity that apps just aren’t providing yet.