Friends suggested that I take some amphetamines along to get in the spirit of the lesbian speed-dating event I went to recently. My pal Jules – ever the wag – even suggested I ask some questions that would make readers blush a pretty crimson. Needless to say, I didn’t ask the assembled lovelies about their gag reflexes. Not the kind of opener I prefer, actually.

As a speed-dating virgin, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Why speed-date anyway? Aren’t we lesbians statistically supposed to meet, move in, and co-parent a cat faster than you can say Sandi Toksvig? And who’d pay the price of a generous pub round to meet 20 women on a blustery Saturday night, when they could be doing something spiritually fulfilling like eating pizza at home and watching I’m A Celebrity? I would soon find out.



After we’d received instructions, scorecards and nametags from our Pink Date hosts, Liz and Mandy, we were ushered to our seats in the basement of South London’s finest lesbian member’s club, The Chocolate Lounge. First up was Jade, an attractive painter from New York City – think a better looking Macy Gray. Dressed in fitted blue denim, dark leather knee-high heeled boots and stylish top, she was a whirlwind of Big Apple positivity, but I was so distracted trying to remember the rules – three minutes with each candidate, be respectful, listen to each other, make a note of their name and number, write down their distinguishing marks so that you remember them – that by the time I’d done my dating admin, a school bell had rung and our ‘date’ was over.

Next up was a giggly blonde magazine publisher who’d come all the way from Manchester –‘I’ve had everyone there, so I thought I’d try my luck down here’ – who looked far too young ever to have deflowered anyone, much less devised a business plan. Layla and Carol had recently moved to the capital to find friends and follow their fortunes, and tipsy Veeba fluttered long, feathery lashes at me as she dished up spicy innuendo.



After ten dates, Liz rang her bell for half-time, and we made our way to the bar. Thirsty work, this. When I quizzed my dates about why they were there, Lisa told me she didn’t much like clubs and wasn’t sure how else to meet other lesbians. Francis said she didn’t mind clubbing, but why waste hours in a noisy bar, risking tinnitus, staring at someone and wondering if they’re gay or girlfriend material, when a speed-dating event serves up women who are all a) into women and b) up for it. Jackie liked it so much, this was her third time. ‘You could say I’m a speed-dating slut,’ she confessed.

Where else does a gay girl get to meet a bunch of live, available lesbians in the space of an evening? And with so many leisure pursuits competing for our time and attention, if you’re after a girl, speed-dating is the Ronseal of the dating world. It gives you the opportunity to cast your net away from the usual bars and clubs – precision dating, if you like. At least that’s what date number 11, Polly from Clapham, seemed to think.

‘How many times have you spent half the night staring at that hot girl at the bar, desperately hoping she’ll make the first move,’ Polly asked me, ‘only to realise that she’s as shy as you are? Neither of you budges, you drink your pint and you both go home alone. That’s why I’m giving this a try.’

Oh dear. I can’t say that’s been my approach – stroll on up and do your worst is my motto – but I’m interested by the ambivalence that my fellow ‘dates’ seem to have about speed-dating tonight. We’re all aware, it seems, that limitless choice is confusing. At the same time, we have fantasy partners, the woman who ticks all the boxes – sane, sorted, funny, own home, killer collection of books and vinyl; subconsciously, we look for her in everyone we meet – but she may just be too good to be true if you ever do meet her in the flesh. Because of our own demons about whether we measure up, when and if we do meet her, she may scare the bejesus out of us: our desire is sometimes so bound up with what we fear; that’s what makes our ‘perfect love object’ so enticing.

Perhaps we simply want to master the chaos in our lives, so we calculate how, when and where we think we might meet our mates.

Novelist Thomas Mann said that desire was largely based on misinformation. As communication speeds up and the ways in which we connect with one another multiply, so do the ways in which we express and expend our desire.
‘We live in a throwaway society; culture’s disposable. Instead of mending old jeans, we chuck and buy. Why should it be any different in relationships?’ fellow speed-dater Tat asks. Living life at high speed inevitably results in a skimming of the surface, misinformation, and lack of depth. Speed-dating is its logical corollary.

But whatever happened to leaving the meeting of significant others to chance? I’m not suggesting we chuck speed-dating out. For everything there’s a time and a place.

At the end of the night, I ticked just two on my scorecard. Maybe, I concluded, speed-dating is just an efficient way to meet other lesbians, the perfect device for time-poor non-scene love seekers, especially so to niche interest groups, be they sexual fetishists or lesbian extreme ironing fanatics. As for me, I prefer dating the old-fashioned way. Anyone fancy a cocktail at the Savoy?

www.pinkdate.co.uk