Speed Freaks

There was a time when I first moved here that JPD and I were on a relationship hiatus. We were trying to make the long distance thing work but it was hard and at the time, he had no plans to move back here (he is Irish) so our future was very much up in the air. At such an interval, I went speed dating with my friends MO’D and L in a hotel here in Dublin.

Speed dating hit these shores full on about 2 years ago, well past its expiry date in the US. It takes a while for things to travel across the ocean. They get shipped freight. Such a bright flash in the pan it was that speed dating was featured as a “great night out” article in the inflight magazine of the national airline for Ireland. Everyone wanted to do it. Married people wanted to do it for the “craic”. It was considered a great night out on a Friday and so, with that in mind and with the secret hope that maybe, just maybe, Prince Charming was also there for the craic too, we made our way to the venue.

The ticket tells us to get there at 7. We get there at 7:30 because they are Irish, therefore always late and I am just always late. It turns out that the thing starts at 9 but the bar opens at 7 so we have plenty of time to get good and juiced up for the chatting. Girls and boys are divided up like a junior high school dance. We ain’t talking to the other sex until they ring that bell – no way. L and I are already staring them down though, trying to see if there are any worth talking to. L has the standard “speed dating” attire on which means lots of cleavage. After all, you are going to be leaning over a table at strange men all night long, you have to give them a visual to remember.

MO’D is hung over like they don’t make hangovers anymore. She had been puking up her guts until a half hour before we dragged her out to this thing. If anyone should be in hospital for potential alcohol poisoning, it was MO’D. The reason she got so drunk the night before? Nervous about speed dating. Well, it worked because she is so out of it that nothing is going to worry her as much as just being conscious.

Dublin is divided into three categories of people. People you know. People you know through other people. Tourists. I run into a girl that I work with which would have mortified me in the States but doesn’t here, because, hell, why the hell not speed date? Its great craic! DB, my work colleague, is already tanked. Her posse got ready for the gig by polishing off 2 bottles of wine – each.

We are divided according to age group: 20-30, 30-40, 40-50. I pick my proper age group which is 30-40. All the guys over 40, we will soon find out, pick the age group 30-40 because they “don’t want to get stuck with any old dolls”. There are no 30-40 year old single guys – every 30-40 year old single girl knows that.

So they get us in the room, seated at these long tables and give us little cards. We are also wearing a number like so much cattle in a market. The bell rings and we are off! Every time the bell rings, the guy needs to switch seats and move. We get a 4 minute conversation and “ding ding” goes the bell. If you liked the guy you just talked to, then you tick him off. If he ticked you off too, they ask both parties permission to exchange your contact details. The rest is history.

Let me tell you about the guys that crossed my path
Smarmy dubs with bad attitudes
These guys are taxi drivers, security guards or builders who just broke up with a woman whom he failed to marry for the 15 years they were going out together. Now he is kicking himself because she won’t take him back.

Farmers whose mothers’ just kicked it
These guys had one woman in their lives and under their roofs and that was Mother. Now that mother has passed away and someone needs to do the washing…

Some other feature that made them totally undatable.
L ended up matching with a guy whose apartment was so perfect, it was featured in one of those “beautiful” homes magazines. He was so incredibly anal about it though, he made her take off her shoes, drink out of the faucet, pee standing up … actually I don’t really know what he made her do other than take off her shoes but she really thought he was gay, despite his protests to the contrary. It didn’t work out.

Here was the seating plan:


MO’D / L / Me / ? / ? / ? / DB
<------ Direction of guys


For the first 30 minutes or so, this was the typical 4 minute conversation I had:

Guy: Hi
Me: Hi, how are you?
Guy: Fine…you’re not from around here.
Me: No, I’m American
Guy: Where in America?
Me: Born in NYC, grew up in Connecticut but lived most my adult life in Boston.
Guy: My [sister/brother/aunt/uncle/cousin/neighbour] lives in [Boston/NYC]! Have you ever gone to [the Black Rose/Scrumpy Jack’s/The Blackthorne/O’Neills/Thady Cons]?

Occasionally I would try to hear MO’D or L in their conversations. MO’D was having the best time because she was just telling everyone to f-off because she was hungover. Typical MO’D conversation was:

MO’D: If you don’t have anything interesting to say, don’t bother talking because I couldn’t be arsed.
Guy: Uhhhh [clearly falling in love]

I forgot to mention that they had drink orders coming right to the tables where the “dating” was going on so everyone became more merry, shall we say, as the evening progressed. At one stage, DB started saying this (please locate DB on the seating chart to understand that she was meeting all the guys first):

DB: In a few minutes you are going to meet this American girl. I know her. She used to be a stripper over there. Dodgy stuff.
Guy: Really? Go on!
DB: She moved over here for a quiet life, a new start - you know yourself.
Guy: Really!

So after speaking with DB, this was the conversation I was having:

Guy: Hi
Me: Hi, how are you?
Guy: Fine…you’re not from around here.
Me: No, I’m American
Guy: Where in America?
Me: Born in NYC, grew up in Connecticut but lived most my adult life in Boston.
Guy: Is it true you were a stripper?


As I mentioned, L met a gay guy, I gained a reputation of being a sex worker with all the 40+ year old farmers from the midlands and MO’D made it through the night without puking. DB got the most matches out of anyone in Dublin Speed Dating history (no joke) because she was telling them all kinds of lies and this seems to work with Irish guys. Lies and giving them shit. She couldn’t remember one of them in the morning. We spent almost half the day at work after that weekend trying to sort out who was who. She never went out with any of them.

It really was great craic.