Sci-Fi Speed Dating is a company that hosts a speed dating event at various cons around the country, doing about 45 shows a year. For those unfamiliar with the process, pairs of facing chairs line the room, and the men and women are divided up. Either the women or men rotate, whichever group has less people. I’ve seen it go both ways (unless of course it’s an LGBTPQ session, then they divide it in half by preference). You’re given an ID number, anywhere from 1-99 and told to give no names or phone numbers, and equally importantly, not to ask for names or phone numbers. You get a 3 minute date before you rotate which is absolutely enough time to know if you want to continue the conversation in “real life.” If that’s the case, you write their ID on a 3x5 card and you’ll put your name/ID/contact info on their paper at the end before collecting your corresponding paper and leaving.
There is a cost of entry – there has to be, or people wouldn’t take it as seriously and you’d have leavers half way through. It was twenty bucks per session, which might seem sizable to talk to a bunch of strangers, but keep in mind that it’s the only facilitated opportunity to talk to 20-25 like-minded, single people interested in dating. I find that to be vastly underestimated. In the weeks leading to Comic Con, I was shameless in telling people I was looking forward to the speed dating and there was no shortage of looks of confusion, disbelief and stigmatized repulsion, as if I'm going to some random bar event. Surely my prattling on about the efficacy swayed their opinions... No? Oh well, their loss.
After three sessions between Friday and Saturday, I had a good amount of phone numbers. And the host Ryan Glitch kept it fun, safe and interesting. I had penned in the IDs of women I really felt a connection with or saw a mutual interest. I had a total of eight “mutuals,” as I call it, where we both exchanged our numbers. I had my share of IDs that I wrote down that weren’t mutual to be sure, but all around, I enjoyed Sci-Fi Speed Dating quite a lot, found it to be extremely effective and would recommend it to any nerd or geek. Needless to say, I'm pretty damn well versed in my "about me" elevator pitch right about now. It was only ever annoying to finding out if someone was from out of town, just visiting for the con.
There is a cost of entry – there has to be, or people wouldn’t take it as seriously and you’d have leavers half way through. It was twenty bucks per session, which might seem sizable to talk to a bunch of strangers, but keep in mind that it’s the only facilitated opportunity to talk to 20-25 like-minded, single people interested in dating. I find that to be vastly underestimated. In the weeks leading to Comic Con, I was shameless in telling people I was looking forward to the speed dating and there was no shortage of looks of confusion, disbelief and stigmatized repulsion, as if I'm going to some random bar event. Surely my prattling on about the efficacy swayed their opinions... No? Oh well, their loss.
After three sessions between Friday and Saturday, I had a good amount of phone numbers. And the host Ryan Glitch kept it fun, safe and interesting. I had penned in the IDs of women I really felt a connection with or saw a mutual interest. I had a total of eight “mutuals,” as I call it, where we both exchanged our numbers. I had my share of IDs that I wrote down that weren’t mutual to be sure, but all around, I enjoyed Sci-Fi Speed Dating quite a lot, found it to be extremely effective and would recommend it to any nerd or geek. Needless to say, I'm pretty damn well versed in my "about me" elevator pitch right about now. It was only ever annoying to finding out if someone was from out of town, just visiting for the con.
This felt so refreshing and opposite to what I had grown accustomed to within the glorified McDonald’s ball pit that is the world of app-based free online dating. Looking at you, Tinder. With online dating, we rarely take more than a few seconds to judge a person before either swiping. Swipe right in the immediately extinguished hopes that they’ve already swiped you, or the unknown if they ever will (or if the account is even active, or if they're a bot for that matter) or swipe left in an eternal banishment, accidental or no. You don’t have to pay, but they’ll gladly take your money and sell you the idea of hope and entice you with verbiage like, “Don’t let her go!” or “Buy our shit!" In return, you get super-ultra-mega swipes to shoot an ignorable notification over to the person, and put you at the front of their line, except behind anyone who also super-ultra-mega swiped them.
I’ve been told that my pictures don’t do me justice, which is mostly good. I think! Largely my experience has felt like walking through a silent casino among coaxing displays and bright lights, but all the people are cardboard cutouts. If you’ve seen my other piece on online dating, you might notice a slight tonal shift. After a while, there’s an inevitable overwhelming sense of futility and pointlessness, leaving a sense that I'm coming off like the Peter Parker in the below video, wondering what the hell I'm doing wrong. Over the span of 3 months or so on OkCupid, I sent 30-40 typically decent, thoughtful messages, all to people I had a legitimate interest in. In the rare case, a conversation would flutter then flicker out before long, but the most genuine reply was a lovely note of disinterest. I actually super appreciated the honesty.
Though I’ve been on/off of these apps/sites for years, I’ve never walked away from them all so fully as I did a month ago, with no intention of returning. Of course, there are no expectations at this point, but nonetheless it's exciting to see who's out there and what types of connections I can make.
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