Name: Frankie Chee (above) Age: 36 Event: Dining Xpress by dating service Lunch Actually Format: A three-course dinner at the Shatec's Charcoal Gourmet deli and bar in The Treasury, involving nine men and nine women. There are three tables, each comprising three "couples". At the end of each course, the men move to the next table and meet three new women. Participants are free to exchange contact details.
After two years of having to share my singlehood and non-existent Valentine's Day plans with faithful Urban readers, I was given the choice of writing another I-am-single follow-up or detailing a speed-dating experience. You can guess what I chose this year.
Even if readers aren't already bored by some single guy pondering his unpaired status, I have run out of reasons and thoughts on that matter.
In any case, I have never gone to a dating event of any sort and this would be an opportunity to experience it without seeming desperate.
Being a virgin speed-dater, my limited knowledge of such events led me to think that only the socially handicapped or the really lost and forlorn would participate in them.
So it was with some trepidation that I headed off. I was also apprehensive about having to meet and chat with three different groups of girls while tackling a meal and maintaining my "undercover" status. I introduced myself as a journalist, but did not reveal that I was there to do a story.
What if someone realised I was there with a hidden agenda? Would I meet someone interesting? Would I be able to keep from laughing when my photographer colleague turned up to take pictures? Was I wearing the right shoes?
Still, although I had to write about the experience, I was also attending as an eligible single guy.
The event - in which you sit with a different group of three "couples" at each course of a three-course dinner - was not as bad as I feared.
First, it was not one of those tiring conventional speed-dating events where you repeat yourself countless times as you jump from woman to woman every three minutes.
This one felt like a casual dinner where you could have a bit more time to chat.
Second, everyone was friendly and nice and there were few awkward moments of silence. Among the people I met was a woman in medical tourism, another who does credit ratings for IT-related companies and a British woman in the food and beverage industry.
The numbers worked out fine that night as there were eight pairs of men and women, instead of the intended nine, as a pair either had cold feet or there just happened to be a coincidental lack of participants.
Third, I hate to admit this because it makes me eat my words but, yes, there was someone interesting, Ms L, among the eight women I met that night.
Last, to my relief, the photographer did not step inside to take pictures - though I tried hard not to look when I spotted him outside the window, peering in through his lens.
Postscript: Ms L later told me that I seemed shifty and distracted during the dinner.
Well, if any of you who were there that night are reading this, now you know why.
Indeed, during the evening I had a nagging feeling some of you suspected I was up to no good and someone did suggest that I might be there to write a story - which I laughed off.
Now, I feel bad about it. Sorry, guys.
As for what I got out of my first dating event - Ms L and I did meet up for a couple of dinners. She turned out to be wholesome, pleasant and soft-spoken.
Incidentally, she attended the event to keep a friend company; and when I broke the news that I was going to write about the event, she jokingly complained that she felt "cheated", but we still met up after that.
This article was first published in Urban, The Straits Times on Feb 14, 2008.
