Have you ever attended a speed dating event? As a regular host of several speed dating and singles events in New York City, we have some interesting insights to how attraction works, trends in matches, and how people behave in these situations!

People are always describing how difficult it is to date in NYC. Whether it is due to New Yorkers’ lives being too busy for dates, or the abundance of options encouraging people to be fickle and never settle for anything consistent, or just the inherent downsides of online dating, we thought it would be nice to offer an in-person alternative to dating apps. However, while we offer dating events as a place for singles to congregate, you can't be attending our events all the time, so think about your choice of neighborhood a little when considering your dating life in New York because it matters. Below is a map of gender distribution for single New Yorkers ages 20-40 by neighbhorhood.

While there are many places to meet people organically in your neigborhood, when younger generations think of how to explicitly meet potential singles, dating apps like tinder, bumble, and hinge come to mind quickest. However, if we were to try to think of an in-person service that consistently provides quality singles events, there is no one brand that readily comes to mind! This is the gap that we are filling. Our speed dating and social events are designed to become the go-to resource for meeting singles and just new people in general. But now to the good stuff - after hosting over 40 speed dating and singles events in the past year, as of June 2022, we have compiled some interesting data and insights to dating and matching patterns in our audience!

To begin, we must establish what our audience is. Our events newsletter of over 10,000 New Yorkers, is primarily comprised of young professionals of various backgrounds, aged 20s-30s. Our gender distribution is roughly 60% women, 40% men. The events that we host generally attract between 30-50 people per event.

Roughly 30-40 attendees sit in a room in pairs across from each other over a small table. Girls generally sit on the outside circle, guys sit on the inside circle. There are usually 10 rotations or “dates” of 5 min each. Everyone has their own index cards to fill out their own information and the names of the people they meet. At the end of the 10 rounds, everyone hands in their index cards and we follow up with matches the next day if both sides said yes to each other. Additionally, after everyone hands in their cards, attendees are free to stick around and socialize with anyone they hadn’t talked to, or would like to talk to more!

After hosting dozens of speed dating events in the past months, we are able to compile a short list of quick, interesting insights to patterns at our dating events

So what can we take away from these numbers? Well looking at the first 3 points, we can see that girls are more selective than guys when it comes to selecting matches, which makes sense. Also, the average matches per person is below the number of “yes’s” for either gender, which also makes sense since there are situations where a girl or a guy says yes but not the other person. From points 4 and 5, we can also see that girls are much more likely to say no to everyone than guys are. But we still consistently see girls enthusiastically signing up to our events, which means that their mindset or approach to the event is probably different from guys.

Guys on average tend to be more “mission driven” with an explicit intention to find dates and meet girls. Girls on average tend to come to just have fun or check it out, and maybe if they find a few people they are really interested in, they will meet up with them again. But in any case, for either gender, we have heard that the main benefit to attending these events is that you save time compared to online methods - you can tell within the first few moments whether you’re attracted to someone, and whether the other person seems legitimately interested in furthering the interaction.

From points 6 and 7, we see that guys repeatedly come to events more than girls. This hints to us that while both genders find advantages to in person dating events compared to dating apps, the advantage for guys is probably larger given that they actually get to meet girls in person as opposed to mindless swiping. Girls also do repeat from time to time but not as much as guys do, and this can probably be due to the nature of dating dynamics and the less focused intentions of girls when they come to our singles or speed dating events.

However, regardless of what dynamics happen at our events and who actually attends, statistically straight guys in their 20s and 30s have on average slightly better odds at meeting singles than straight girls due to NYC demographics. This is supported by the fact that our newsletter is majority female, which could also show that girls are more likely to actively seek out social opportunities by signing up for our newsletter, keeping in mind their intention is not always to date. So guys, if you come to our events and don't get any matches or very few, and also see the same outside of our events meeting people organically in your neighborhood, the slight statistical advantage is not going to help you that much, and probably just means you have to work on yourself more! With more options comes more competition for both guys and girls, so the only option really is to be the best version of yourself.

When you go to a speed dating event, there are some basic tips to give you a better chance of success. While each interaction and person will have their own tastes, there are some general rules that help you improve your odds.

While we can't promise that you will find your dream date at each event, we can guarantee that we will bring together a crowd of professional, eligible singles at our speed dating events. After all, half the battle is putting yourself out there in the right situations. So if you are tired of trying to meet people online and want to try something more engaging, more active, and social, come join us at our weekly speed dating events and singles events!