The Daily Campus

Issue date: 2/12/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Ashley Popasil Abbey Forbes, 2nd-semester exploratory major (left), and Craig Marnell, 2nd-semester psychology major, mingle at one of the many tables set up in the Student Union Ballroom for speed dating.

First impressions were especially important Wednesday night as SUBOG hosted its first speed dating event. Participants were given three minutes to meet and decide whether to pursue the person across the table moving onto another potential date.

The event was just in time for Valentine's Day hopefuls to find a date.

Each participant received a pamphlet containing a space to put a date's name, along with a decision of whether or not they would like to speak to a date a second time. If two people answer the question with a "yes," then both parties will receive an e-mail confirming a match has been made.

Mostly, students came to the Student Union Ballroom hoping to snag a last-minute sweetheart just in time for the holiday.

Tension filled the air initially as the men lined up at the back of the room and the women meandered over to an empty table, waiting for the festivities to begin. It was immediately clear that far more people expressed a speed-dating interest than anticipated, morphing the event into speed double dating, with two girls and two guys at each table having one large, awkwardly rehearsed conversation. Every hour, a new round of speed-dating would begin in order to accommodate the number of people participating. There were only 15 tables and well over 60 people.

Every three minutes, the host would ring a bell to signal that the date had officially ended and a new date must begin. Whether partners were desperate to end their awkward silence or in mid sentence about their winter break, each person was suddenly on a new date and the process would start all over again with a stranger.

A list of "lifeline" questions such as, "If you had a million dollars, how would you spend it?" and "If you could visit any foreign country, which would it be?" was provided to each person in case conversations flat-lined, a tool that came in handy now and then. The three minutes proved to be an easy timeslot to fill as students talked about their majors, where they lived on campus and their school activities.

The event lasted a total of three hours and students could come and go as they pleased. After a student decided they had asked the same question an exhausting amount of times, interrogating anyone from a 27-year-old mechanical engineer to an 18-year-old Spanish major, he or she could hand in the matchmaking pamphlet. The fun has only just begun. Each person then resorts to waiting patiently by the computer in hopes that a special someone had checked "yes, I'd like to see this person again" next to his or her name.

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