For those new to the concept, Speed Dating is an organized social event where participants meet multiple people in rapid succession, getting to know each other as much as possible within the brief "dates" before moving onto the next person. At the end of the event, each participant rates their dates and compatible matches are given contact info so they can meet up at their leisure. It's a great way to meet people make friends in the geek community. I should mention now that for obvious reasons, participants should be 19 or older. And in case you missed the title, this one's Gentlemen Only.
Because of the popularity of the event and the time constraint, availability is limited. To that end, reservations are the best way to guarantee your spot. If we reach the cap early, you can still show up in case somebody drops out and a spot opens up. And if you reserve a spot but change your mind, let me know so I can let someone else in.
It's also important to remember that even if you don't get in, you can always make new friends around AR the old-fashioned way: Just walk up to people and introduce yourself. You never know what you might have in common (like a mutual love of anime, for example). This is just an express lane.
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Rules and Procedure
When you come in, we'll assign you a number and give you a note sheet. Each date pairing is established by a pre-determined sorting algorithm that allows each participant to meet each other participant. (editor's note: Speed Dating within one group requires a different system than it would with two. It looks and sounds confusing, but trust me, I did a lot of math to work this out.) When we start, you will have three minutes to talk to your date, introduce yourself, learn about them, ask about likes/dislikes, etc. A timer bell will ring to signal the end of the date, at which point the host will place you into a new pairing in accordance with the algorithm. We'll give you a couple seconds to write down some notes about your date so you can remember them for later. The timer will start again and you'll repeat the process, moving through the sorting list. Because of the nature of the system, the total number of participants must be an odd number, thus one participant will sit out each round for a break. When you've met everybody, dating will be over, and everyone will be given a sheet with the numbers of each person, along with checkboxes for "Romance", "Friendship", and "Not Interested". Hand it in, and later we'll send you the contact info for all of the dates who thought you were interesting and want to chat with you!
During the dates, it is important for each participant to stick to general conversation topics and refrain from asking personal details. Participants are STRONGLY encouraged NOT to request or provide contact info to/from other participants within the panel, since that’s what the evaluations are for. If you want to meet up outside afterwards and chat more, feel free, but this keeps anyone from feeling uncomfortable if someone gets too pushy. You're making friends, not planning the wedding.
Anyone who refuses to follow the rules or is otherwise rude or disrespectful to other participants or panel staff will be asked to leave and their contact info destroyed. Their seat will not be reassigned to a drop-in because it would be unfair to insert a new participant midway through the event. We'll just have to have two people sit out each round, who can have an extra three minutes to chat if they like.
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Reservations
It's a one hour event, so at three minutes per date, there's room for 15 participants, for a total of 15 dates and 45 minutes of date time. (editor's note: I logistically figured that the audience for "Ladies Only" and "Gentlemen Only" would be smaller than the one for "Boys and Girls", so I only allocated it for one hour instead of two. If I get a ton of reservations and it looks like there's a bigger audience, I'll see about trying to extend the event.) Given that we also need time for evaluations and such, that works out great. If you want to save a spot, then send an email to rockyjlbuckland@gmail.com with "Anime Speed Dating (Gentlemen Only) Reservation" in the Subject line and the following info in the body:
Name (first and last, we may ask for ID): yournamehere
Age: youragehere
Gender: You read the title, right?
Email: youremailhere@runningjoke.com
Anyone with questions or concerns about the event can ask them here, or contact me privately and I'll do my best to help you out.
