Speed date flirting

by Sam Van Rood
Love Doctor
Monday, 18th May 2009

Sam is the love doctor on GMTV, The Wright Stuff, How to find a Husband and more! He also works with several London speed dating companies. Below is a full chapter from Sam's book "Teach Yourself Flirting" and how to apply it in a speed dating environment.

Flirting when speed dating is a specialist art. It is different from normal flirting as you have such a short time to make a first impression: three minutes. Actually, you have even less time to make a first impression as most women make up their minds about a potential partner when speed dating in 30 seconds or less.

What not to do!

The biggest mistake you can make when you are speed dating is to treat it like a job interview. There are a surprising number of speed-daters out there who do exactly this, particularly women. It is easy to fall into the job interview trap. After all, 20-30 speed-dates in one night can be pretty exhausting, and you can lapse into asking boring, standard questions.

The biggest turn-off in speed dating is to ask the standard question: 'What do you do?' Work is a boring topic, unless you have an incredibly interesting job, and even then it is risky territory. You may have great chemistry, but the other person's job may be an instant turn-off. You only have three minutes, so use them wisely and leave work out of it. When speed dating, talking about work is banned!

It's all about chemistry - keep it casual

Speed dating is all about chemistry. It is about sitting down with a person, having a light fun chat and seeing if there is any connection between the two of you. It is not a job interview, nor a stage play. It is about having a chat with someone and making a quick decision about whether you want to see them again.

When you meet someone for the first time, you will get an instant first impression. You know if there is chemistry or not. Usually, if there is chemistry, you end up chatting to the person for much longer and then taking it from there. speed dating is an accelerated version of this process.

You won't learn about chemistry if you have a boring chat about their job. You will find out if there is chemistry through a casual conversation - start by asking some fun and interesting questions.

Learn from the world's first speed dating experiment

It is useful to have a look at the results of the world's first largescale, speed dating experiment. It was run by Professor Richard Wiseman at the Edinburgh Science Festival in the UK.

The results from the experiment showed that women make up their minds about their dates much more quickly than men and also showed some of the best chat-up lines.

The experiment involved 100 members of the public taking part in 500 speed-dates. Each participant rated the attractiveness of the people they dated, and also indicated if they would like to meet up again.

Forty-five percent of women reached final decisions about their potential mates in less than 30 seconds. In comparison, only 22% of men made up their minds in the same time. Professor Wiseman commented that in speed dating, men only have a few seconds to impress women - which makes their opening comments particularly important. Women were also twice as picky as men, the men ticked twice as many 'yes' boxes as the women. The top male and female speed-daters had a 100 per cent success rate - with all of their dates wanting to meet up again.

The effectiveness of opening comments was analysed by looking at the highly successful and most unsuccessful speed-daters. The most successful got their dates to talk about themselves in an unusual or quirky way. The top rated female asked, 'What's your favourite pizza topping?' The top rated man asked, 'If you were appearing on Stars in your Eyes [a UK talent programme], who would you be?' Those who failed made statements like, 'I have a PhD in computing' or used clichés such as 'Do you come here often?'

The best topics for conversation were also analysed - travel came out trumps, and movies came out bottom. Apparently, since men and women have such different taste in movies, this topic increased their chances of disagreement. Conversations about travel and dream destinations made people feel good and appear more attractive.

You should have a fun and interesting opening line to get the person you are speed dating to open up and talk about themselves. Other examples you could try are as follows:

For men to women:

• 'If you were a character in the TV show Sex and the City, which one would you be and why?'
• 'If you were a movie star, who would you be and why?'

For women to men:

• 'If you were a superhero, which one would you be and why?'
• 'What's your favourite beer?'
• 'What's your favourite sports team?'

All these are light-hearted and will mark you out from the rest of the crowd.

Talk about something interesting

Try to get the person you are speed dating to talk about something interesting, something that they love. In the speeddating study, travel came out top because it made people seem glamorous and they felt good talking about it.

Another good way of getting people to open up is to find out what their passion is. It is different for everyone: some people love books, some are Star Wars fans, some love food, some love travel. If you can quickly find out what someone's passion is, then your three minutes will be packed full of conversation and they will be reluctant to leave.

How do you do this? Try asking, 'What's your passion?' or 'What do you do for kicks?' When people talk about something they love, it is terribly interesting for them since we all love talking about out passions, and it will make them feel good. If you have that passion in common, it means you are going to make a very quick and strong connection.

It's about your state of mind

Speed dating is also about your state of mind. 93% of communication is non-verbal - what you are feeling and thinking is reflected in your body language and voice tone. In speed dating, you only have a short time to make a first impression, and so it is important that you are feeling confident and relaxed. When you are confident and relaxed you will find that you talk more slowly - but remember less is more - while there may be fewer words, there is more information coming from your body.

Case study

Patrick was having no luck with speed dating. He was nervous about it and lacked confidence. Generally, he would get two ticks out of 20 at speed dating events. I worked with him and he learned how to change his state of mind by using a mind programming CD to feel more confident about speed dating. As a result, his whole body language changed and he gave a much better first impression. He now gets 11-12 ticks out of 20 on a regular basis.

If you feel you need a boost in confidence for speed dating, go to Chapter 4 and the 'shrinking violet syndrome' section and do the exercise for boosting confidence. Use speed dating as your flirting situation.

In summary:

• Talking about work is banned - it's boring.
• It's all about chemistry - keep the conversation light and fun.
• You only have 30 seconds to make your impression.
• Ask an interesting first question.
• Find out what the other person loves and get them to talk about it.
• It's about your state of mind - being relaxed and confident makes a big difference.

Like what you've read? Purchase Sam's book Teach Yourself Flirting

Find speed dating events near you »

topic tags: conversation, flirting, speed dating

share your thoughts...

related articles

about the author

Sam is the love doctor on GMTV, The Wright Stuff, How to find a Husband and more! He also works with several London speed dating companies. Find out more about Sam at samvanrood.com

see also...

• Latest dating news and advice
• Find dating events near you...
• Compare the best online dating sites