Does Speed Dating Work for Men?

According to several studies the answer is NO.

I have tried speed dating in the past, several times in fact, and always came away feeling like a failure. I always thought I was just bad at speed dating but after reading several studies I certainly feel better about myself because they indicate that I didn’t have a shot at success.

Why? Because when presented with so many men to choose from, women will avoid making a decision and simply say “no”.

How Does Speed Dating Work

Speed dating events can be set up differently by different organizers but generally you get 3 – 10 minutes to talk to a woman before your time expires and you move onto the next one.

You wear a name tag, rotate from woman to woman, fill out a score card, submit it to the hosts, and hope to hear back from the ones you liked.

Here is something Match.com promotes; a single’s event which is basically speed dating:

The idea seems good when you think about it; several quick “blind dates” in a limited time so you can find someone you have chemistry and attraction with and set up a date with.

But…..

Women With Too Many Options Avoid Making Choices

I have gone into this topic before on another blog post:

Why Women With Too Many Online Dating Options Is Bad For You

In a nutshell, a woman with too many options can become overwhelmed resulting in her avoiding making a decision rather than putting any effort into actually making a choice.

I pointed out in the blog post above that this “choice overload” applies to online dating; however it also applies to speed dating.

Does Speed Dating Work: Study Results

There have been countless studies analyzing the question; “does speed dating work?”.

In one study, at larger speed dating events, the “yes” decision making of women were more strongly predicted by physical characteristics such as height and weight and less predicted by job status and education.

Women will say they are looking for certain characteristics that we’ve all heard before; smart, intelligent, nice (my favorite), educated, funny, etc….. But study after study shows that when presented with a large set of options, women make decisions that are poorly aligned with their “stated” preferences of their ideal man.

Another speed dating study showed that as the “variability” of potential partners increased (across attributes such as age, height, occupation, and education for example), speed daters became increasingly likely to say “no” to 100% of their partners, echoing the “choice overload” effect mentioned above.

The same study showed that as the “variability” of potential partners increased, speed daters were less likely to say “yes” to the men who were viewed as actual matches to the women. These are the “smart, intelligent, nice, educated, funny” men that all women say they are seeking but end up getting rejected because there were simply too many men at the speed dating events forcing the women to say “no”.

Yet another study tested the size of the speed dating events. The study found that as the size of the event increased, the speed dating participants said “yes” to a smaller proportion of potential partners.

It’s interesting to note that this study concluded that women who attended speed dating events where they met a small number of men (9-14) were over 40% more likely to agree to a date than women who attended events where there were a large number of men (15 and above).

Another study found that when men rotated from woman to woman at a speed dating event, the women were much more selective and were more likely to say “no”. So, if you go to a speed dating event and you are expected to rotate from woman to woman……RUN.

Are you still curious “does speed dating work for men”?

Final Thoughts

Does speed dating work for men? If you believe in studies and facts, the answer is no.

Most speed dating events have a large number of men at them and with the larger number of men at a speed dating event, the more likely a woman will say “no” to you. Unless of course you look like a male model which most of us don’t.

My advice to you is to speed dating events because the odds are against you.

However, if you simply want to check a speed dating event out, you should see how many men are going first. If there are a smaller number of men, as one study showed above, your chances of success are greater than when there are a lot of men attending the event.

What are your thoughts about speed dating? Does speed dating work for you? I’d like to hear your thoughts below.

References:
Eli J. Finkel, Paul W. Eastwick, Benjamin R. Karney, Harry T. Reis, and Susan Sprecher
Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science
Psychological Science in the Public Interest January 2010 13: 3-66, doi:10.1177/152910061043652