The candles were lit, the corks were off of the wine bottles--and the timer was set to five minutes. While waiting for his date to sit down, Sam Forehand, a second-year law student, snuck a peek at her from across the room. Then he approached her and asked, "What's your least favorite place to go to in Durham?"
"What kind of question is that?" his date responded. After a brief pause, she replied, "Elmo's [Diner]."
A taken-aback look appeared on Forehand's face as he asked, "What could possibly be wrong with Elmo's? Elmo's is like my favorite place!"
The whistle had blown, and his speed date had begun.
It was Wednesday night and a little late to catch a date in time for Valentine's Day, but for love, it's better late than never. It seemed that many graduate and professional students agreed, as 110 participants gathered at Tosca's Italian Ristorante Wednesday night for Speed Dating, an event to raise money for the public policy graduate students.
Every year, the first-year public policy students are given the task of raising $5,000 in any way that they think will be efficient. While past events have included selling T-shirts and holding auctions, this year speed dating was the chosen function.
"I watched 'Sex and the City' and saw an episode where they did Speed Dating," said Kim Williams, a first year public policy student and one of the event's organizers. "I thought it was really interesting and last semester [the committee] started looking for a venue to hold such an event."
The funds raised from the $15 participation fee will go towards the Internship Fund to allow public policy students to take on internships that may not provide compensation. This will be a big assistance to the department, as "a lot of us will do internships in [Washington,] D.C. that are free or very low paying," said first-year public policy student and event coordinator Megan Burns.
When students registered to participate in the event, they submitted an extensive survey that was used by professional matchmaker Steven Sacks to make sure that students were matched compatibly. Sacks, who volunteered his services for the Internship Fund Committee, used the methodology from his book, Mate Map, as the basis for his pairings. He relied on profile attributes such as age, religion, ethnicity and physical characteristics.
"I asked the students to rank their first, second and third preferences in each of these categories to see what they were willing to bend on a little bit," said Sacks. He also paid close attention to students' graduation dates.
"Hopefully some long-term relationships will develop," he added, as those with graduation further down the road would at least have a year or two at Duke to see what developed.
The atmosphere at Tosca's was relaxed and casual, as the speed dating process made meeting people easy, from having participants wear name tags that said a little something about them, to giving out question cards that could be used to spark conversation in case a couple ran out of things to talk about.
However, most people came up with conversation topics on their own just fine.
On another date, Forehand and his match began a conversation about world travel, during which she spoke about her adventures in Greece. Forehand interjected with "I was in Greece in high school!" Just as his date began to ask excited questions about why he went and where exactly he visited in Greece, Forehand interrupted, "No, no, Grease the play, I had the lead role." His date, thinking Forehand was hilarious, laughed non-stop.
The five minutes were soon up and the daters, hesitant to leave, headed off to find their next dates.
Although most of the dates seemed to go smoothly on the surface, some matches may not have been perfect. At the end of the event, participants made their personal decision about each of their partners, privately checking yes or no to the question of whether or not they wanted to keep in contact with any or all of their eight dates. If both parties express the desire to go out again, Speed Dating organizers will act as intermediaries, exchanging the students' personal information via e-mail.
For the most part, participants were not desperate students seeking love, but rather just looking to meet new people and have a good time. Inter-departmental mingling was a focus for the night, as organizers tried to match students with a date outside of their department. Although with some couples, such as Forehand and his dates, the departmental variety didn't occur, for others, the mix of people was a refreshing change.
"It's really hard to get outside of your program," said Megan Fotheringham, a second year MPP student. "This is a good opportunity to meet new people."
Due to the speed of the dates, the night was also a convenient way to meet a lot of people at once.
"It's not just about dating, it's about the mingling too. It would probably take about 20 nights out to meet all of these people, and this condenses them into an hour," said Ted Clark, a first year MPP student and another organizer. "All my friends do at home is sit around and complain about how tough it is to meet people.... As soon as I get home I'm gonna start one of these up."
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