Are you in London looking for a rapid-fire way to step up your dating experience? Speed dating could hold answers to questions you didn’t even know you needed to ask.
While speed dating gets put through the wringer in romantic comedies, it serves a beneficial purpose in the process of developing your dating and social skills.
A speed dating event will have you cycle between tables and partners at a very high rate. On the best days, you can wind up with a heaving tower of phone numbers. On the worst, you’ll learn a whole lot about the patterns you carry out that may harm your chances in the field.
Either way, they are an excellent avenue for forcing yourself out of that comfort zone and making sure you don’t return for a whole evening.
What are the best speed dating nights in London?
There is such a range of speed dating nights that you can and should be strategic about what you want from them.
- Original Dating: This is an established speed dating company based in London which offers a range of speed dating events for a variety of age groups and nationalities. One of the classic speed dating organisers, you should be able to find a high-quality night to suit your tastes.
- Killing Kittens: Each attendee is vetted ahead of time for attractiveness, and the event is masked. Identities remain a secret. If you strike up great sexual tension, they also offer rooms in which to explore those urges. An elite, upmarket, and sensual night.
- Shhh Dating: A novel idea that involves dating without words. One round is spent communicating in squeaks and gestures, and one in complete silence, using eye contact alone. The night ends in a mingle in which you can unleash that pent-up conversation and find out more about the people that really piqued your interest
- Last Night A Speed Date Changed My Life: A standard speed dating setup that takes place in London’s hippest clubs, this night is more notable for its trendy clientele than any gimmicks. The event is a fantastic option for people in search of more creative partners.
Take into account the venue as well. A classy, high-end venue will attract classy, high-end woman. Some nights take place in cooler, more underground establishments, and these are likely to attract a different crowd.
Alternatively, try all of them and see which is the best fit.
Tips for speed dating
For the uninitiated, speed dating is a jarring dynamic. Being plunged into a whirlpool of conversations and opportunities can be a thrill, but it’s important to be prepared.
The following tips can help your personal brand stand out at a speed dating night:
- Look the part: You have a very short time span to make a big impression, so make sure you get a smart haircut, clip your nails, and dress to the nines.
- Maintain eye contact: With such limited time for verbal communication, eye contact becomes doubly important. Make sure you maintain strong, confident eye contact and avoid darting about with your vision.
- Have questions prepared: Prepare three questions and see if you can springboard into a rich enough conversation to avoid asking one or both of them. This should not be an interrogation, but it’s good to have backup material in case the interaction starts running out of steam.
- Be curious: You’re about to meet 20, 30, maybe even 40 people. Be genuinely interested in who you’re sitting with. Pick questions that encourage longer, more detailed answers – open questions; why, rather than what. These go a long way in a short period.
- Have fun: You get to spread an infectious sense of fun to loads of people in quick succession, and this is the way to stand out. You’re trying to convince a woman a whole evening with you would be enjoyable. Relax and have a laugh with it.
- If you really connect with someone, leave with them: You’re all adults. If you strike up a rapport with someone at lightning speed, you’re not tied to staying there. You’ve won the night already. Throw out a line like “I’m exhausted. We’re attracted to each other. Let’s get out of here and get a drink,” then start your own adventure. That’s one hell of a story she’ll be telling her friends.
- Stay beyond the closing mingle: In the classier events around Mayfair, SoHo, and West London, people will filter in between 7 and 10 PM, as it can be pretty dead at those times. Because of the dating night, you suddenly have access to a venue you wouldn’t normally have access to. The elite clientele will be filtering in to start their club night as the speed dating event winds to a close. If this isn’t your usual environment, use it as an opportunity to socialise.
Why do speed dating?
Confidence is a process, and that process is by its very nature a numbers game.
While being able to conduct an open, engaging conversation with a range of women in any room should be a (highly achievable) goal of yours, it takes time and experience to reach that level.
Speed dating is extremely high turnover, so guys who may not have a deep well of experience from which to draw positive reference points can see how easy good conversation can be when the barriers are up.
You have to bounce from one confident moment to the next, or step outside of your comfort zone a little bit further because the last conversation you had ended on a positive note. Reference points are your platform for confidence.
At a speed dating night, you can build up a tonne of them. Everyone is there for the same reason.
While you might think that adds a little pressure due to high expectations, it’s the opposite: You can relax into yourself in the knowledge that you’ll be sat in front of someone else in 5 minutes time.
Half of a fruitful conversation is making the other party feel comfortable. You can clock up some superb experience in that regard and pick up a few phone numbers while you’re at it.
You can then take the momentum from those positive conversations back into bars and clubs.
You will always gain something out of speed dating, whether it’s hard lessons, experience, or real possibilities.
To go beyond speed dating and conquer cold approaches, get in touch about my 7-Day Course at www.johnnycassell.com/pua-training.
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