Week 39 took me into the cruel world of dating, once again. Having already taken part in a blind date, I haven’t really wanted to delve into the dating world for challenges. But alas, I’m running out of things to do from the list, and speed dating was the challenge.

I went into this challenge, with a sense of arrogance. You know the “I’m a bit better than this” type of feeling. My perception was always about a sense of desperation around speed dating. I guess both of these kind of changed over the night. Let me explain…

The night started with a couple of drinks in the pub next door to settle the nerves (have you worked out a theme for when I’m nervous yet?). Once we finally stumped up the balls, myself, my housemate, Marc, and my work colleague, Steve, all entered the speed dating room, where we were handed a sheet of paper, a pen, a name badge and a number.

The rules are simple. 4 minutes. Have a chat. Rate either Date, Mate or No. On to the next one.

The ‘women’ came from all parts of the world, Mexico, Germany, Australia, England. No one really took my fancy, but it’s hard not to try and impress in the scenario. The main issue I had, was that due to the ordering, both Marc and Steve had already told the females everything about me. “Are you Tom, that writes the blog?” I’d normally be greeted with.

There were some characters, when I put ‘women’ in inverted brackets, that’s because I’m almost certain one wasn’t a woman. Despite the fact she/he was insistent on telling me she was during my four minutes. Never thought I’d date a transexual in my life, I must admit.

The event was all done and dusted and it was time to rate everyone. This is where the evening took a real downfall personally after this. Having a drink at the bar, the three of us asked four of the girls from the speed dating to honestly tell us what they put for matching. Their answers were as followed:

Girl 1: Pointing at Steve – Date.. Pointing at Marc – Date… Pointing at Me… Mate
Girl 2: Pointing at Steve – Date.. Pointing at Marc – Date… Pointing at Me… Mate
Girl 3: Pointing at Steve – Date.. Pointing at Marc – Date… Pointing at Me… Mate
Girl 4: Pointing at Steve – Date.. Pointing at Marc – Date… Pointing at Me… Mate

This followed by a procession of “I’m Fine!” in Ross Gellar style by myself. I was gutted, and my arrogance from the beginning of the evening was quickly shot to pieces. The girls told me it was because “my heart wasn’t in it”… It probably wasn’t but still. OUCH.

All this aside… My review on speed dating. Not for me. I struggle to believe anyone in this world would find romance from speed dating. It’s such a forced, un-natural process, filled with no time to actually chat to people. There is a clear feeling that people are rating you from as soon as you walk into the room, something that is not enjoyable. It was a laugh with my mates, but I can’t imagine I’d see myself doing this again. Were people in the room desperate? Maybe not as I imagined… I don’t really think anyone saw themselves getting much out of it.. But maybe that’s because my heart was never in it (Yeah – still fuming).