DateandDash, a Chicago-based speed dating company, is the newest trend to offer a solution to the traumas of dating. DateandDash looks to side-step the pitfalls typically associated with first dates. Awkward silences. Incompatibility. Rejection. Or perhaps the biggest obstacle of all, summoning the kahunas to swap digits and arrange the date in the first place. Sound familiar?
So what’s speed dating anyway? As defined by their website, DateandDash is a fun and exciting way to meet a lot of other singles in your area. It’s a newer dating technique that can be traced back to a Jewish Rabi in Los Angeles in the mid-90’s. Hmmm…if an LA-based Rabi didn’t catch your attention—here’s how it works.
Through their website, DateandDash.com, a prospective speed dater can purchase a ticket for a ‘speed dating party’ that is usually held at local classy bars and pubs. During a speed dating party, an attendee is assigned a number and a score-card to take notes on the people that they will be dating throughout the evening. An attendee spends approximately 5 minutes with each candidate and then moves on to the next candidate—therefore experiencing multiple ‘dates’ per event. (Think of it like a series of mini interviews.)
Determining a match is pretty simple. If Male Number 2 circles a ‘Yes’ after his date with Female Number 1 and Female Number 1 also circles a ‘Yes’ to correspond with Male Number 2—that’s a match. Within 72 hours after an event, DateandDash emails an attendee his or her matches and the necessary contact information for the successful partnering to meet again.
Chicago, a city fabulously littered with ‘single and ready to mingle’ professionals, provides a huge customer base for the DateandDash concept to flourish.
“DateandDash has grown rapidly,” said co-founder and co-owner Josh Walden. “People attend our event; they like it and tell their friends. That is how we get new customers everyday.”
These new customers are comprised mostly of single busy professionals that do not have the time, or perhaps the energy, to pursue the relentless and often unpromising bar scene.
As described by Walden, the typical DateandDash speed dater would be a busy single mainly between the ages of 23 and 39; however, the only enforced age is 21 and there is no ‘age-cap’ for the parties.
“People who try DateandDash want to have fun while looking for that special someone, in a convenient and relaxing atmosphere,” Walden said.
And as co-founder, that ‘convenient and relaxing atmosphere,’ is what Walden, 28, and his partner and co-founder Vilius Gavrilenka, 28, are looking to provide at each event.
The DateandDash company was born after Walden and Gavrilenka were throwing back a few beers at a friend’s house. Gavrilenka and Walden realized that they both had the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ and after brainstorming, Gavrilenka brought up the idea to capitalize on the concept of speed dating. To fully conceptualize their plan, Gavrilenka and Walden headed to a local bar to discuss what would result in their current project. DateandDash was launched on August 1, 2005.
The next DateandDash event, on May 17, will be at Lucilles at 2740 Lincoln Ave. The cost is around $30 bucks that covers the event itself, a free drink, appetizers and the match tallying after the event. Check out www.DateandDash.com for more information or to purchase tickets for an upcoming event.
