Abstract
Drawing upon the semi-structured interviews with 15 men aged 30–54, this chapter explores men’s experiences of speed dating. Beginning with theories of partner choice, the chapter engages with the ways that men navigate speed dating events by focusing on their anxiety and vulnerability. This provides a pretext for the articulation and demonstration of particular speed dating masculinities. On the one hand, there are men who take up a predatory heterosexual script. On the other, there are men who use speed dating events as a means to find a long-term partner. Interestingly, men looking for partners make up the majority of those who attending speed dating. Such men had a number of strategies that they would draw upon to choose a potential partner, or in their words, ‘the right kind of woman’. These strategies involved reviewing and evaluating women’s appearance and manner and establishing whether the women that they were meeting were ‘telling the truth’. Thus, men would use such strategies to evaluate the quality of the date. The chapter concludes by suggesting that although men in this sample tended to hold onto traditional gendered attitudes, it was clear that the speed dating event exacerbated men’s insecurities and anxieties.
It’s cold. To bring a coat and thinking of how awkward it would be to carry around led me to sacrifice it for comfort. The last half an hour spent finding somewhere to park the car along with reading a downloaded map self-conscious anxiety rising from my stomach. Pre-meeting nerves of where is it? Will I be late … street names on a downloaded map make no sense—some streets and walkways in shopping centre have no names. After asking for directions to numerous ‘visitors’: ‘Sorry, I’m not from around here’, the venue for tonight’s speed dating event comes into view. I straighten my hair and my clothes, take a deep breath and walk through the doors …
… and there’s no one here. The barman shouts over ‘If you are here for the speed dating it’s downstairs’ ‘Thank you’ I somewhat sheepishly returned. Downstairs was a cramped room with numerous café-style tables and chairs with a bar behind. Men tended to stand by the bar or in corners by themselves, not speaking to anyone. The women were mostly sitting down, mainly in pairs. I made out the host and walked over. She inquired looking down at her clipboard, ‘And your name is …?’ ‘Chris …’ I replied. She smiled, looked up and laughed, ‘Well let’s hope that’s a lucky name …’
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Haywood, C. (2018). Speed Dating: The Making of ‘Three-Minute Masculinities’. In: Men, Masculinity and Contemporary Dating. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50683-2_3
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