The only preconditions are that they have all paid some money, dressed up a bit, come to a bar in town, and pinned on a name badge. Speed-daters, by contrast, have on any given night around 10 potential matches.
At a conference in Los Angeles earlier this year, Tinder CEO Sean Rad told press that the app now matches 10 million people every day. Since the advent of Tinder, Grindr, Tingle, and numerous other dating apps, the attention span of the dating world has shrunk. Some would probably not survive a dating app flick session. Speed-daters have, on any given night, around 10 potential matches. They stand for the next 15 minutes nervously twiddling straws and re-tucking shirts. Then the daters arrive, in ones and twos, slowly filling the bar. I spend half an hour setting up the room, putting café numbers on the tables, and writing out name badges.
Speed-dating has become ironic it’s actually one of the slowest forms of dating around. I cover two venues in southeast England for one of the largest dating companies in the country. On Monday nights, I’m a speed-dating host.