Adventures in speed dating

I haven't been happy with my online dating results, so I decided to give speed dating another try. For those who haven't done it, speed dating involves having a five minute (or thereabouts) "date," then moving on to the next person until you have spoken to every member of the opposite sex. I have had mixed results -- one relationship, a few women I went out with one or two times, and a whole lot of nothing. The event I attended was advertised as speed dating for people with graduate and professional degrees. I figured there would be a lot of lady lawyers looking for a man to pierce the corporate veil, so to speak.

The event was okay. Lot of lawyers, as I expected. Lot of non-white women. Mostly women in their 30s and 40s. No one really that great looking, save for a kind of cute blonde with a generic 'burbs personality. Conversations were the usual DC bullshit -- What do you do? Where are you from? What do you do for fun? I felt like a salesman. Even though I wasn't all that keen on anyone there, I felt the need to mark down several matches at the end of the evening to justify my time and money spent. (Yes, I realize this is economically irrational behavior because the cost is sunk, but whatever.) Alas, no matches.

Verdict: Speed dating is yet another way to get rejected by women you wouldn't look at twice in the real world.

I had one match from my event. The woman lives far away (in a county not bordering DC), but I thought it might be worth getting together for a drink, so I sent her an e-mail asking if she wanted to get together. She replied that she did, and added that she is divorced with two kids living at home, a 15 yo and an 8 yo. These are generally dealbreakers for me. No real classy way to extricate myself from this situation.