I promised, a while ago, a post about the differences and similarities of online vs speed-dating. So since I have mad jet lag and no other urgent tasks to attend to** here it is:

People who online date are embarrassed about it. But less so than people who speed date. Actually, I only say that because I have never met anyone who admitted to speed dating (apart from the people I've met speed dating, who might not admit to it to the outside world but would have trouble denying it to me) but that really might just be a base rate issue. This base rate issue is really one of the dominant dimensions upon which to compare the two. People, I guess, think that online dating is more effective than speed dating. Otherwise they'd do more of the latter. Or else speed dating is much more difficult to arrange, so fewer companies are willing to try it out as a business. But let's assume it's the former explanation. Why would online dating be more effective? Well, potentially there are a whole lot more people one can "encounter". Except I doubt that people actually *do* encounter more people. But, anyway, there are more candidates to choose from. Additionally, there is a lot more information one can learn about these candidates. One can (sometimes) judge online profiles on some very "important" criteria (i.e. what we seem to think is important, regardless of its relationship to, um, relationship onset or satisfaction). Like, what someone's alleged favourite books are, how he spends his time. How tall he claims to be. Depending on the site, how interested he is in matrimony, how important religion is to him, and so on. These kinds of value-matches or interest-matches are impossible to arrange in most speed-dating scenarios. Anyone who has ever been speed dating will know that 5 minutes is really not enough time to get even the barest of skinnies. Sure, one can go to the "active lifestyle" speed dating event, or the "Ivy Leaguers" speed-dating event, but this is not a guarantee of an actual match on those criteria (personal experience, 2010). Which, in effect, makes it super similar to online dating, where people lie all the time.*** But, potentially, much much more information is available online than is after a 5-minute "date". One might assume, then, that even though the matches we *meet* IRL are *fewer* from online sites, they are in fact *better*. Which is why there is this generally accepted rule about the 10th person one meets from the online world being pretty much The Guy.****

Now, here's where I think all of those people are wrong. What one *can* glean from speed-dating but *not* from an online profile is whether someone is a someone one'd like to spend more than 5 minutes with. Whether someone is nutto (sometimes they very clearly are!), whether they speak in a voice one likes to listen to and, here's a really big one, what they look like. How they act.

So, on the one hand: information about the person's insides. On the other: information about the person's outsides. Which is more important on a date? And maybe in a relationship? The outsides. How they treat me and how they interact with the rest of the world. Seriously. I don't care about how they perceive themselves. That is utterly non-diagnostic for how they behave. I think because the dimensions we judge ourselves on are rarely the dimensions that are actually important in an interaction. Like, I might self-identify as athletic. And abstract-thinking. But those characteristics (even if they are true) are not what people necessarily notice when they first meet me in a dating context.

To be clear, I think speed-dating is not great. I honestly think that, for me, it is useful mainly for weeding out weirdos, because I personally don't have a real physical "type" and I don't judge so fast (I'm the chick who says "yes I'd date him again" to all but the sociopaths). But it is also useful for weeding out men who immediately reject me -- so those who *do* like to make snap judgements (and do not find me appealing; I guess the ones who quickly decide I'm OK aren't weeded out). Which turns out to be a real stress-saver when one goes on an actual follow-up date.

Anyway, since I'm back in the land of no dating at all, this is sort of a moot discussion. But I'm interested to read Your thoughts about this oh-so-yuppie-21st-century-first-world juxtaposition!


* are You wondering why there wasn't a single asterisk before there was a double? It's because of all the single asterisks I used for emphasis. Wouldn't want You down here in the footnotes too often. Reading this same footnote.

** this is a joke. a sad, sad joke.

*** Or so I'm told. The only time I experienced this first-hand is with a married man who claimed to be single. Well, and I suppose all those people who present themselves as the person they would like someone else to shape them into.

**** I've had, let's see.... 6 first online dates. Does the guy who stood me up count? I wasn't counting him.