“They would never have something like this in Iceland.”
We’re in the taxi on the way to the bar, and my friend Sandra, who is from Iceland and has less than enthusiastically agreed to accompany me on this daunting adventure, laughs when she says, “My friends back home literally can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Part of me can’t believe I’m doing it, either. I mean, how desperate does one have to be to spend their Valentine’s Day speed-dating in a Murray Hill bar that reeks of cheap beer and 30-year-olds who have forgotten their frat days are well behind them? Truth is, the real reason Sandra and I had each decided to drop $40 to facetiously flirt with men—who were more than likely just looking to one-up their friends by saying they’d “gotten some” on Valentine’s Day—was to write this blog post.
Deceitful? Maybe. Daring? Yes. Dutiful to the well-being of other single college students on the hunt for love and who refuse to use Tinder, Bumble, or Raya to find it? Definitely.
In reality, Sandra and I are not looking for love, and it doesn’t help that neither one of us has any idea how to speed-date. The three-minute time limit for each “date”, the fifty men we are to meet (in under three hours), and the interrogation we’re about to undergo is all new to us.
When we walked inside the bar, I was aware of how self-conscious I felt. Sandra pointed out that I was actually hiding my face underneath my hoodie. I had to do a quick internal evaluation of why I felt so embarrassed to be there. I realized that my preconceived notion of speed-dating was that it was reserved for people who couldn’t find love in real life. As I stood up a little straighter, I reminded myself that we weren’t in it for the free booze, flattery, or even love; we were there on a mission.
“This will be fun,” Sandra said, powdering her makeup in the bathroom mirror.
As we stood in the check-in line, I noticed a group of three women who looked about our age. They were smiling. I was intrigued.
“We were dragged here by our friend,” one of them said, laughing, “but we thought, why not? What else is there to do as single woman on Valentine’s Day?”
Another woman in the group said, “I think if dating has ever been a source of fear, there’s no better way to confront that fear than by doing it fifty times in a row.”
She had a point.
As the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes kept piling in, I made a mental note of how confident the women looked versus how nervous the men looked. Many of the men were alone, while most of the women had brought friends for moral support. I assumed I was one of the youngest women there, if not the youngest. The event was geared towards mid- 20 and 30 year olds, and I am barely 23. Since Sandra is a few years older than me, I assumed her chances of meeting her Prince Charming (or at least someone to get dollar pizza with) were higher than mine.
There were more men than women, and a chaos ensued among the potential suitors. I was situated in the corner booth and instructed to stay there as “the men would come to me.” Sandra was seated next to me at her own booth, and the two of us exchanged “thank God we are next to each other, but also what the hell are we doing here?” glances before the first buzzer rang.
The first stag—a short, wiry man who worked in finance—sat down across from me, smiling ear-to-ear.
“I’m Ashram,” he said.
“Sarah,” I shook his hand.
“Are you a magician?” he asked, and before I could say no, he said, “Because you make everyone else in the room disappear.”
Ashram made me smile with his trove of bad pickup lines and sincere curiosity. We laughed throughout the whole three-minute “date”. Though Ashram was not someone I would generally pick out of a crowd, I was reminded that spirit overrules sight and heart overrules height.
“I’m glad you were my first date,” Ashram said as the buzzer rang to switch seats.
The second suitor was a bearded, slightly pudgy man in his early-thirties named Adrian. He said he was from Romania.
“What matters to you most in life?” I asked.
“Freedom and truth. In my country, when the communist regime fell in 1989, the people demanded democracy, and we got it. Now that’s what I value above everything else, because I know it can be taken away in an instant.”
Although three minutes didn’t seem like any time, I was beginning to realize how little time it actually took to forge a genuine connection with someone.
“What do you do?” I asked a bald man in his thirties with dark spots underneath his eyes and a cheerful smile.
“I’m a cop,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, too abruptly.
“And contrary to popular belief,” he said, “we’re just ordinary people who picked a job with a steady paycheck.”
The more men I met, the more I became aware of their apparent loneliness, behind the name tags and plastered smiles. Several of the men had admitted “It was this or Netflix.” Many had recently moved to the city and disclosed their need for friends. And I was aware of how sincere, like Ashram, most of these men were. But as the night wore on, the atmosphere grew increasingly groggy. People were less enthusiastic about sharing their life stories, darkest secrets, or even their favorite taco joints. At one point, I found myself in the bathroom for six minutes, staring blankly into space. I guess we’ll never know if my future husband was one of the two suitors I so rudely deserted.
At one point, to keep myself alert, I switched from an American accent to an English one and made up a story about growing up in Liverpool and attending an all-girls boarding school.
“So,” the man asked, captivated. “What do you all think of the Harry and Meghan scandal?”
“Oh, you know,” I said, ensuring I took a feminist stance. “We’re all proud of Meghan for standing up for herself and her family. She’s the real OG.”
An open bar proceeded the event, where the suitors and suitresses were expected to mingle, knock back a few cranberry vodkas, and perhaps end up in the same cab, to the same place, around 2 in the morning. Yeah, no.
Sandra had connected with a guy from L.A. who worked for Amazon. I had not written any names down on the list they handed to us at the beginning of the night. Instead, I found myself mingling with an attractive Brooklynite named Daniel, who had thought the event started at nine o’clock, so he showed up three hours late and missed it entirely. Daniel invited me out with him and his two friends, a young woman and man, both single, and the four of us danced on a rooftop in Chelsea until the early hours of the morning. And I wouldn’t have wanted the night to end any other way.
So, what did speed-dating teach me? That only in New York City can you begin your Valentine’s Day with fifty dates, end it with none, and instead find yourself riding around the city with three strangers, dancing, singing, and cherishing “love” in unexpected ways.
But hey—looks like Sandra may have found her Prince Charming after all. Rumor has it she and Amazon guy shared dollar pizza later that night.