by Henry VIII attends a speed dating event and discovers that modern courtship has been compressed into something resembling a jousting round
I once arranged marriages through months of careful diplomatic negotiation, treaties drafted, dowries discussed at considerable length. Speed dating gave me three minutes per conversation and a small bell that ended things regardless of how well they were going.
The Format
Twelve tables were arranged in the venue, women seated, men rotating every three minutes at the sound of a small brass bell rung by the host, a woman named Fern who managed the entire evening with the brisk, cheerful authority of a woman who has clearly done this many times before and long ago stopped being surprised by anything said at her tables.
The First Conversation
My first conversation partner, a woman named Priya, asked my occupation within the first thirty seconds, and I answered honestly, comedian, formerly monarch, a combination that produced a laugh I could not immediately tell was genuine amusement or polite disbelief, and the bell rang before I could properly clarify which.
The Scorecard
Each participant carried a small card to mark a tick beside anyone they wished to be matched with afterward, a system of anonymous mutual interest I found considerably more efficient than any method my own ambassadors ever employed, though considerably less romantic than a formal portrait commissioned specifically for the purpose.
The Standout Conversation
My most successful three minutes came with a woman named Alys, a history teacher who initially assumed my entire premise was an elaborate bit, and who spent her remaining two minutes and forty seconds testing me on increasingly obscure Tudor trivia, all of which I answered correctly, to her visible and genuine delight.
The Verdict
I received, by the end of the evening, three matches, one of them Alys, and I left the venue considerably more optimistic about modern romance than I felt after the entire dating app debacle several months prior. Three minutes, I have decided, is either brutally insufficient or exactly enough time to know, and either way, considerably more efficient than waiting six years for a papal annulment before finding out.
The Second Match
I received two further messages from my matches within the week, one from Alys asking whether I was free for an actual drink rather than a timed three minutes, an invitation I accepted immediately. I have decided speed dating, whatever its brutal efficiency, produced a considerably better outcome than the entire dating app saga managed across several genuinely painful weeks.
I have also recommended the whole format to two fellow comedians since, both of whom reported considerably more successful evenings than my own dating app experiment ever produced. Three minutes, in the end, proved to be exactly enough time after all. Three minutes, in the end, proved to be exactly enough time after all, and I have recommended the format enthusiastically to everyone who will listen since. Three minutes proved considerably more efficient than most of my six wives, if I am honest. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: London men listing their own dating red flags, a three person tenancy agreement that started as a quiet drink in Soho, the original account of my own return to Britain.
