The Demise of Speed Dating
Americans want things fast. Fast food, speedy deliveries and quick stops. For awhile they wanted speed with their dating, too. For a decade speed dating was all the rage with relationship seekers. It caught on quickly—and disappeared just as quickly.
Speed dating was the brainchild of California rabbi Yaacov Deyo. He developed it as a fun, fast way to introduce his congregation’s singles to each other. As members of the same congregation, the singles had a lot in common and the format took off.
Stevie Fernandez, Marketing Director for The Singles Station, says it’s easier for this process to work in a setting like that because all of the participants have a major personality trait—their religion—in common. Immediately they can connect in a friendly way.
But the format became a victim of its own success. As it exploded across the dating scene, speed dating events drew more and more people—with less and less in common.
Five minutes with somebody with which you have nothing in common is an eternity. It takes the “speed” out of speed dating. And it yields no results. When it lost its focus, speed dating went the way of drive-in movie theaters.
