The dating scene (or, can't wait until Klara does speed dating)

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I promised my friend Klara that I would write about dating. She's a bit of a control freak and forced me into writing something about dating. You see, Klara will do speed dating soon and is feeling somewhat insecure about it so she wants me to do it also, so we're in the same boat and she won't feel as awkward doing it. I said that I'll maybe do it some day and best I could promise is to write something about dating in general on my blog. I don't know what I will write about, I'll just start and see where it takes me.

I've dated since I was 14 (?) or so. In my teenage years it was called trial and error, not really dating. You didn't know "the rules" back then and I just moved to America so even if there were "rules", they just changed drastically for me. So, as a teenager you're just learning and can't really call that proper dating. Skip away to adulthood and here is where it gets interesting.

First off, how do you even meet someone? My preference is the social scene, that would mean pubs, clubs, parties, coffee shops, concerts. Pretty much every girl I ever dated, I met in one of those places. I did do Internet dating once but that was a miserable failure although it lasted over 6 months. I never went to church and I'm atheist so that's out of the question (plus, as my friend Doug says all the time, a lightning would probably strike me if I ever entered a church). Some people like to do clubs and classes - running clubs, fitness clubs, book clubs, cooking classes, wine classes, etc. I've never tried and maybe I should because pretty much all of those things interest me. Plus, what can be easier than showing up at a wine class, gulping down some sweet wine, and hitting on equally buzzed classmates? Sounds foolproof to me - damn it, I gotta do it!

Anyway, back to the first step. Besides meeting girls/guys through friends, family, cultural events, and all that other stuff ... what about speed dating? I've never done it, it has been an overdone cliche in movies and TV shows, and I literally don't know anyone who has done it. Maybe Klara will be the first one and she can report back as to the efficiency of the process. How can you really like someone after 3 minutes (as Klara tells me the rule is) to ask them out? Allegedly you don't actually pick anyone for a date that night, you just indicate your choices and you follow up if with a date if you choose to do so. I'm a big believer in chemistry because I've seen it happen many times to me so I guess 3 minutes might be enough for me to pick a girl based on chemistry alone. But what about other aspects such as interests, political views, religious views, how they eat their food, do they like to be spanked, how much money they make, are they racist, do they listen to Justin Bieber, do they think "New Moon" was better than "Twilight" (correct me if those are not the correct names of those movies)?

My point is, how do you really know if you like someone in that short amount of time? Is chemistry enough to get you started AND keep you going, if it turns out some of the aspects of their personality you can't stand. If it doesn't work out, do you go back to speed dating? What if you click with more than one person? Do you rank the chemistries then go out with multiple people and then decide which one is the best? Interesting.

I guess to answer that first question, let's see what you talk about during speed dating. Do you even go into details like your nationality, family members, religious views; or do you focus on interests like music, movies, hobbies; or do you see if they have a sense of humor; or do you challenge them intellectually; or do you just sit there silently and wait for the other person to say something just to break the silence; or do you touch their hand and see what the response is; or do you start asking them questions and never say anything about yourself until they ask you; or do you focus on their body language and simply make casual conversation about sunny days and the Irish economy? Or maybe you do all of the above in 3 minutes (highly unlikely since most people can't even read those sentences in less than 3 minutes) (also highly unlikely for a guy to do any of that if he's faced with a fierce opponent such as an extremely hot girl with cleavage showing, hot red lipstick and a point blank stare into your eyes - I think we would just mumble anything that would come to our mind at that point).

So, Klara, tell us how it was and we'll follow up this blog post with a discussion. By the way ladies, I'm single and I DON'T like to be spanked.