"What's speed-dating actually like?"

That's something I've wondered, off and on, since I first heard about the practice when I was in college. And last night, I found out!

There's a group called Professionals in the City (with events in Baltimore, Boston, L.A., NYC and Philadelphia, as well as D.C.) whose email list I somehow ended up on around the time I graduated - they hold regular "mixer" events, from introductory language workshops to galas for various celebrations. Speed-dating - which they call "Four Minute Dating" - seems to be one of their specialties, and the variations on the basic idea they offer are legion. They've held Four Minute Dating sessions for "travel lovers," "Jewish singles" and "international professionals," along with a Mini Four Minute Dating series that they cap at a much lower number of attendees, a strategy they advertise as less hectic.

I've been curious about these things for a while, and finally decided in November that I was actually going to go to one. But between the holidays and a December Pros in the City event schedule that didn't offer much for the under-25 crowd, I didn't get around to it until last night's "Twentysomethings Seated Four Minute Dating." A girlfriend and I, talking about the idea over happy hour late last year, decided it was the kind of thing that would be much less scary if you didn't go alone, so when I saw the "Twentysomethings" event on the schedule, I nagged her into going with me. If it turned out to be totally awful, I reasoned, at least we'd be able to sit next to each other and laugh at how terrible it was.

We arrived at the appointed time, got our nametags (first name only, plus an ID number assigned by the staff to keep track of everyone) and walked into the venue before grabbing a drink from the bar. Apparently the opinion that meeting people gets exponentially harder after dorm life is over is a popular one, because there were a lot more people than I was expecting!

The Pros in the City staff called us to some semblance of order after about 15 minutes to explain how the evening would work: girls would sit on one side of the numbered tables and sofas in the room and guys would sit on the other, rotating up one numbered seat every four minutes. They handed out sheets of paper with places to write down the ID number and name of everyone we talked to, plus a place to check off "interested" or "not interested" (which I didn't actually use, since the paper was visible to the people I was talking to - that just didn't seem fair!) and room for comments.

I kept up pretty well with the names and ID numbers of the guys I talked to, but didn't do so well with writing comments. Looking at the paper now, I've got the name of a movie I'm supposed to watch (Idiocracy - although I'm also supposed to pretend the suggestion came from the guy's friend that I talked to right before him, since the movie is apparently a little vulgar), a couple of countries people were from or where they had studied/worked/traveled, some hobbies and "MCM!" for the jazz percussionist who, like me, ran the Marine Corps Marathon this past fall.

Going in, I was pretty sure it would be awkward at least part of the time, and it was, but I was surprised that my overall opinion upon leaving - and well before that, actually - was, "That was fun!" The pace was slightly frantic and there were some people I had no interest in talking to again, but the exercise of making (quick!) conversation with such a variety of personality types was really interesting. And, being a people person, one I enjoyed.

The highlights...

Positives:

• Talking to a lot of people you'd probably never meet otherwise, many of whom are really nice.
  
• Having a "safe space" in which to meet everyone and another one to follow up: Pros in the City sent every participant a log-in for their site today, where you can go to write a note to up to six people you'd want to talk to again. Their server patches messages back and forth, and your contact information remains confidential unless you decide to share it.
• Realizing that I have at least one common interest with a decent cross-section of the population.
• Laughing. A lot.
  

Negatives:

• The volume! There were almost 100 people there, and with everyone talking at once, you had to nearly yell to be heard. When I got home, my throat felt like I'd spent the evening at a soccer game or a concert.
• There were so many people that we got through less than half. Although if I'd talked to any more people (I talked to more than 15 as it was), I'm not sure I'd remember them clearly.
  

Surprises:

• There were more guys than girls!

As you can see, the positives outweigh the negatives and made for a generally worthwhile and fun evening. I haven't decided yet whether or not I'll message anyone (my friend and I need to swap notes - neither of us wrote as much as we should have!), but MCM-guy and I exchanged numbers since we run at about the same pace, so if nothing else, I may have gotten a running buddy out of the experience.

Final take: Not something I'd do particularly often, but definitely a fun time every once in a while!