High-speed dating

A popular new service for Jewish singles provides an evening of successive instant partners. Bad match? Just wait for the bell.

By Michelle Goodman

Nov 1, 2000 | I want you to do me a favor," Stacy's mother said, pushing the newspaper clipping across the table to her daughter. "I want you to go to this."

"This" was SpeedDating, the latest Jewish dating phenomenon, in which singles meet at coffeehouses for collective blind dates -- or more specifically, to go on seven seven-minute blind dates in one evening.

Stacy's mother remains hopeful that her daughter, a 29-year-old Seattle tech professional notorious for dating non-Jewish men, will change her ways. She's so hopeful that she offered to buy her daughter a sofa -- all Stacy has to do is partake in a night of SpeedDating.

Stacy, who recently split with her latest non-Jewish boyfriend, admits that with the couch bribe as her excuse, she feels less desperate registering for Seattle's upcoming round of SpeedDating. (Stacy, who's both a head turner and a sidesplitter, wouldn't give her real name. In fact, all the SpeedDaters mentioned here asked for pseudonyms. Even for the attractive, intelligent and personable, the stigma of matchmaking still stings.)

Already a hit in 20 North American cities and spoofed on an episode of "Sex and the City," SpeedDating made its Seattle debut in October. Like Stacy, I padded my ego with a justification -- writing this article -- and signed myself up for the matchmaking extravaganza. Still licking my wounds from a nasty breakup, I was just depressed enough to believe that 49 minutes of blind dating held therapeutic promise.

I was among three dozen Jewish singles between the ages of 30 and 40 at Seattle's groundbreaking SpeedDating event. And for the record, the earth did not move. Yet since that initial evening of supersonic coupling, SpeedDating organizer Techiya Levine has received several hundred inquiries from Seattle singles, some of whom aren't even Jewish, all eager to register for this bimonthly hormonefest.

"It's like ripping off a Band-Aid, or like running into the Mini Mart," Stacy explains. "It's quick and it's painless."

The first Seattle event occurred -- where else? -- at a Starbucks. The tangle of schmoozing singles waiting for the mating marathon to begin looked inviting enough. And they didn't seem to mind the latte-sipping nondaters craning their necks over their laptops to see the freshly coifed, name-tagged folks being filmed and interviewed by the evening news.

Don't think for a second that only the bold and beautiful worked the floor. The shy and awkward made quasi-successful small talk with the bubbly and boisterous. Doctors chitchatted with dot-commers. Artisans bent the ears of accountants. And recent New York and California transplants gleaned restaurant and camping tips from veteran Seattleites (who aren't usually known for their warmth toward Manhattan or Los Angeles).

A few women did share my apprehension. But the candy-store-struck men certainly weren't complaining.

"You can't go expecting all supermodels, because that's absurd," said Phil, a 34-year-old reporter who relocated to Seattle this year. A no-nonsense, self-assured guy, he was impressed with SpeedDating's knack for "cutting through a lot of the B.S."

"I was a little worried it was going to be the parade of old boyfriends," said Leslie, a 32-year-old doctor who has lived in Seattle for eight years. Insightful and adorable, she's fond of uttering gems such as "If guys went around with little name tags that read 'Raised a Christian but Flexible,' dating would be much easier." Rather than bumping into all five Jewish guys in town she has dated, Leslie was elated to find a roomful of strangers at SpeedDating.

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