ohn caught my eye as he approached my table. He extended his hand and enclosed mine in a firm handshake, offering me an easy smile as he introduced himself. His baseball mitt-sized hand made mine feel tiny – dainty, almost, like a little girl’s.

Straightening his charcoal suit jacket, John slid into the seat across from me.

“Do you come here often?” he asked, rolling his eyes a little at his own cliche question.

“This is my first time,” I said. “And yourself?”

At least once a week, he plays guitar at the bar around the corner from where we’re sitting, he told me, so he stops by the Waterhouse, 3407 N. Paulina, every so often. Some nights he comes straight from the office for open mic night. The guys at the bar give him a hard time for showing up in a suit jacket and tie, but he doesn’t mind.

Conversation with John moved easily, sliding from one subject to the next like someone had scripted it. We talked about my work and his, where we grew up and how he loves nothing more than to write and play his own music.

After a few minutes, we had drifted into the realm of international travel when a blonde woman with a clipboard cleared her throat and blew a whistle. The shrill sound ripped through the chatter in the bar and made me feel like a first-grader being called in from recess.

John thanked me for the conversation and shook my hand again before relocating to the table on my right. I was still scribbling down his name and some distinguishing features on my HurryDate scorecard when another man approached my table and started the whole process over again.

Speed dating was like nothing I have ever experienced. It’s comparable to a series of job interviews. HurryDate and other companies like it offer this kind of fast-paced, high-octane “dating” for people across the country.

As a 20-year-old college sophomore, I felt a little out of place with the 25- to 35-year-olds who were at HurryDate that night. No one else seemed to notice, though. Maybe they thought I looked young, but no one mentioned it.

Speed daters have four minutes to introduce themselves, learn a little bit about their date and decide whether or not they want to see the person again. After each date, they have just enough time to circle “yes” or “no” on their scorecard before starting the next date.

“When you go in, your adrenaline is severely pumping, most people are very nervous,” says HurryDate founder Adele Testani. “It’s sort of invigorating. You meet someone for four minutes and tell them all the wonderful things about yourself, so when you leave, you feel really invigorated.”

At HurryDate events, participants pay $35 to meet 12 to 20 people in whirlwinds of conversation. The bar I went to for my HurryDate party, the Waterhouse, was trendy and chic. Located off the Paulina stop on the CTA Brown Line, it was one long, narrow room with the deep crimson walls accented by art and plasma screen televisions.

In between dates, I watched in amusement as the men tried to take notes while moving to the next table. I only had time to jot down a few half-legible comments myself. After I left, I looked back at my sheet to find candid comments including “teacher, nice, loves kids” and “like dating my dad.”

I hate to admit it, but I was surprised so see how normal the majority of the people were. I half expected to find a group of desperate single people in their 30s looking for a date anywhere they could find one. Instead, I met unique, friendly men of every description. I met black, white and Asian men. Engineers, teachers and architects. Easygoing and intense, responsive and shy, polite and brash. Men who genuinely just wanted to meet women outside their usual social circles.

And that’s exactly the point. Speed dating draws on a concept first developed by a rabbi in Los Angeles to help Jewish singles meet each other who might not otherwise cross paths. When Testani founded HurryDate with longtime friend Ken Deckinger, they refined the model and made speed dating available en masse. Their first HurryDate venue opened in Manhattan in 2001, but HurryDate can now be found all over the country.

According to the website, www.hurrydate.com, more than 2.4 million people in more than 65 cities have participated in one of their “parties” since 2001. They offer upwards of 150 parties per month and boast at least 100 marriages.

But as exciting as it is when their parties result in long-term relationships, Testani says they don’t expect everyone who attends a HurryDate event to meet their future spouse. She wants people to have a fun, but she is also realistic about her expectations.

“If you have a great night out and you meet a lot of people, that’s great,” she says. “And if you do meet the love of your life, we’re happy for you.”

I was surprised to find that four minutes of conversation with a person is a decent indicator of how well I would get along with them. I didn’t jump to any conclusions after my dates, but there were distinct differences between them. Some guys were easy to talk to, and I didn’t feel like I was forced to carry the conversation. With others, it was like talking to myself for four minutes.

One guy stared at me so hard, it looked like he was trying to decode a puzzle on my face. He never looked in my eyes, but he commented several times on what I was wearing. We talked for probably two of our four minutes about my earrings. He tried to convince me they were hourglass-shaped that whole time. They’re not.

As much as I analyzed my dates during the night, though, I also learned something about myself. I found I was repeating the same stories and facts about myself to almost everyone I met. Forced to make snap judgments, I relied heavily on intuition to make my decisions. Did he make me laugh? What direction did the conversation go? Did my mind wander or was I searching my mind for the next question I was going to ask while he was talking?

After a HurryDate party is over, each of the participants report their “yeses” and “nos” through HurryDate’s Web site. Within a few days, they receive an e-mail telling them which of their “yeses” said yes to them as well. When the matches are e-mailed out, participants have the choice to communicate with their matches or not.

Although her recent marriage puts her out of the running for speed dating, Testani says she has done it several times herself in the past. In fact, she jokes that sometimes she wishes she wasn’t married so that she could keep doing it.

Eli Finkel is an assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern who has turned his fascination with romantic attraction into a large-scale psychology experiment on NU’s campus. In the spring of 2005, he and graduate student Paul Eastwick designed a study based heavily on HurryDate’s model of speed dating to research the mechanics of interpersonal attraction.

By taping colorful flyers with witty taglines all over campus sidewalks, Finkel recruited 163 participants for his research. Each session matched up 12 men and 12 women – the majority of whom were undergraduate NU students – for four-minute dates at Norris University Center.

Having attended a HurryDate party earlier in the year, Finkel did his best to recreate an authentic speed dating atmosphere for his study. The only noticeable difference was the questionnaires that the participants filled out between each date.

Before attending Finkel’s speed-dating event, each participant filled out lengthy personality surveys online. They detailed how high the person rated themselves in categories including ambitious, sexy, funny, and good career prospects. Another series of questions asked what the person was looking for in potential mates.

In the data from their initial survey, Finkel and his associates found many traditional gender stereotypes confirmed. Men reported that they first look at physical attractiveness when meeting a woman. Women said they looked more for ambitious men with good career prospect
s.

During the speed dating event, the participants filled out a short questionnaire after each date about the person they had just met. The results contradicted what people said on the original survey.

“In their actual dating behavior, the effects (of these gender stereotypes) were largely wiped out,” Finkel says. “We’re really the first ones to say this.”

Known for being the cool professor – with his ponytail, earring and infectious passion for his work – Finkel lights up when talking about his research. As far as he knows, no one else has ever really studied what he and his colleagues are examining. This means a lot of brand new data at their fingertips and the possibility that they might come out with new ideas to publish. It’s too soon to make conclusive statements, but they have already seen some interesting trends in the data.

With their unique data set, they will be able to study chemistry between people in a romantic setting. Although they are still just scratching the surface of their material, Finkel hopes to learn about reciprocity between people. Basically, do we like others who like us?

“If Joe, for example, has a crush on you, there are three possible reasons,” Finkel says. “One is that Joe likes everyone. Two, everyone likes you. Or three, there is something unique about the two of you that makes Joe like you. This third option is the most fascinating.”

Finkel says that his data seems to present an interesting contrast from studies that have been done of non-romantic chemistry. In a non-romantic setting, if you like everyone, it is probable that they will like you back. After all, a person who likes everyone is usually considered to be friendly and personable.

Within the context of dating, however, if you like everyone, they are much less apt to like you back. If you like everyone in a romantic way, Finkel says, you’re just desperate. But if you like one specific person, it is highly probably that he or she will like you back. Finkel admits that he doesn’t know how people discern in a four-minute conversation which case their date fits into, but somehow they just seem to know.

Finkel’s dream is to run a massive speed dating study with thousands of participants. If any of the resulting couples stayed in relationships long term, Finkel would be able to study whether or not the predictors of initial romantic attraction are the same for healthy relationships. He suspects they are not.

“The things that initially attract us don’t necessarily make you a good life mate,” he says.

As I was leaving my first HurryDate party, I sat on the El trying to digest what I had just experienced. Did I feel like I had met my soulmate in a series of four-minute dates? No. But did I have fun? Yes.

I admit that I probably would never expect to meet my future spouse at a speed dating event. But then again, one of my “dates” told me a friend of his is engaged to someone he met while speed dating. So who am I to say that it doesn’t work for some people? I don’t expect to find myself at another HurryDate party anytime soon, but I also don’t plan to cross it off my list forever.

I did get one message through the HurryDate Web site from a 35-year-old man offering to take me out. His 8-year-old son needs a mother figure, he told me. So at least I know that if I ever want to date a man and be closer in age to his son than him, I’ll know where to look.

Medill sophomore Katie Holland is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].