Sunday, August 06, 2006

Should we trust our instinct?

Asked the woman sitting at the next table…’but isn’t instinct just about fancying someone?’ she added without waiting for my answer.

It was at a speed dating event.

I walked in, met up with my friend, got a drink and surveyed the room. There was no one of interest. Terrible to be so quick to form a judgement perhaps, but isn’t that the basis of the entire speed dating industry?

You must have heard about, if not been to one of, these events. Everyone gets a number as they arrive. Women take the table of their number, and men circulate spending three minutes at each. At the end of each ‘date’ you are meant to score everyone: yes, no, friend.

It’s efficient for the first round of screening. You get to meet tens of potentials in one evening. Three minutes per date are enough to know if you definitely don’t want to see the person again. But then if you like anyone you meet, you still have to spend at least a couple of hours trying to look interested and be nice even if you both know there will never be a second date.

All participants are potentially good catches: bankers, architects, graphic designers, mathematicians, doctors and so on.

They are not desperate. They just know how easy it is to be young(ish) with a lot to offer but not meet someone to offer anything to, despite living with 8 million other people in this city and no matter how outgoing and socially busy you are.

But, it’s not natural, again as the woman at the next table said. It’s scripted, careographed and staged…even if the script writers and actors are the same, the dates are by no means spontaneous which takes the joy out of them. Smiles hide the anxiety to look attractive enough and judge the other person all within three minutes.

But the natural is difficult. The odds of meeting someone worth your offerings are very low and that’s why the industry is so successful.

Should we continue with, what seems in bad times, near impossible odds? Should we wait for our fate even if it means accepting the possibility that there’ll be no one for us? NO, screams a voice inside. You are of a generation of women who are truly beginning to be free, to determine their own lives and defy fate others used to decide for them. So, sacrifice an evening, see beyond the staged 3-minutes and give everyone a chance.

There is another voice inside, though, one who says don’t let go of the dream of chance meetings. If it’s meant to be, it will be no matter how hard you try to make it happen or stop it. In fact, do we even really need a significant other to enjoy life? Can we enjoy life with a significant other, if we can’t enjoy it on our own? So, don’t sacrifice an evening, go see some art, dance, sing, enjoy the life that you have!

When it comes to meeting people: perhaps the question is not about how you meet someone but what you look for when you do. Should we trust our instinct or should we judge whether the man / woman opposite is good husband / wife material? Are they two different things as the woman at the next table implied? Can there be happy dating, let alone marriage, without a good dose of desire?! I seriously doubt it.

My initial instinct was right on this occasion. No one was interesting enough. I don’t mean attractive but genuinely interesting. The first three questions of all of them (and there was not time for a fourth one) were how my name is pronounced, where it and/or my accent is from and what I do for a living. Fair enough I guess but boring nonetheless…What did I ask? Not much…the same questions back – minus the one about pronunciation. So I was as much to blame, and as I guessed at the time, I only got two ‘friend’ ticks afterwards…Thank you, guys, but I have enough friends, as I am sure you do.

Thanks also to H – who has been an excellent source of potential answers as always.

4 comments:

zeo said...

Thank you for your wise and encouraging comment, dear "anotheranglo"! The better of anything seems difficult to achieve: same for war (or rather not-to-war) as for love. Having read a bit of your blog made me think this. Sticky situation as always. Better not to war, but if you have to, better if war is between armies rather than armies and civilians. Difficult but 'the better' offers so much more so worth pursuing. Trivial though it seems in the greater scheme of things, I'll do as you suggest and stick to the road I love and know to be right. Let me know what happens with the dating agency, if you join!

White Fox said...

C'mon - Speed dating is fun! Well, not so much the three minute conversations, but the days leading up to it, the joking about to friends before you go, the bonding you do with the other women as you all sum up the men. It's all very Briget Jones - which makes us feel like the star of our own romantic comedy.

Not that I have been speed dating, however speed dating for you hetros is a little taste of what it's like in the world of homos!

Having said all that. I never believed in that chance meeting that would bring on love at first sight. So when it did - I was floored. Within 10 days, we were living together. What followed was a whirl wind 18 months that I will never forget.

And now I nurse my broken heart.

Was it worth it? Hell yeah. So, until I have another one of those... it's back to the "nice to meet you can you fill out my check list to see if we are compatible" style of dating...

Anonymous said...

what an honest and brave look at one of the new realities of modern life! i have so many friends who are now internet dating or trying out speed dating, or doing soulmates, or a dating agency. in fact my sister met her partner through an online dating website - and it turned out they lived three streets away from each other.....

zeo said...

thank you for all your comments. There is no right or wrong way. Whatever will be will be...it's not laziness to think so it's simply liberating!