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Craig Rosner is a pro when it comes to dating.
But 17 in one night?
He's speed dating, of course.
"It's a good alternative to the bar scene," said the 41-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep. "It's nonintimidating, there's no rejection and no guessing. Everybody's here to meet someone."
Dozens of like-minded Jewish professionals tried their luck Wednesday night at the Melting Pot in Carrollwood. Hosted by Cupid.com, it was a game of romantic musical chairs, with each "date" lasting six minutes.
"Six minutes is enough time to decide if you want to see this person again," said Sundrea Ryan, a facilitator for Cupid.com.
"I always tell them, 'I hope I won't see any of you again because you found a match.' "
Three area Jewish community centers, the Tampa Jewish Community Center, the JCC of Pinellas County and the Golda Meir/Kent Jewish Center, joined forces for the event. Participants paid $33 and began the evening with a meet and greet in the restaurant lounge.
Hopes were high. Attitudes were good.
"I've been looking forward to this for three weeks," said Seth Sosslau, who lives in Largo.
For Stephen Kessler, a 33-year-old TV production assistant, it was a chance to expand his circle of friends.
"I'm keeping an open mind," Kessler said. "You know what they say: Beauty is only skin deep."
After about 30 minutes of casual mixing, Ryan explained the rules of the game, telling the singles to keep detailed notes because they would need them the next day. That's when they would go to Cupid.com and give a thumbs-up or -down to the people they were about to meet.
"You'll see a list of the people you talked to tonight," Ryan explained. "If you click yes to a name, a message will go to that person saying you've got someone waiting for you at Cupid.com."
If that person wants to send a message back, the real dating ritual begins.
"Sometimes people may wait a day or two," Ryan said. "They've slept on it, or they've had a busy day. That's the suspense of it."
Next, couples were paired off in cozy booths for their first round of speed dating. They would have six minutes to make their case.
"Get your deal breakers out first, things like do they like animals, do they smoke," Ryan advised.
After six minutes, she said, most people know enough about the person sitting across from them to determine the bottom line.
"Is the guy a jerk? Is the girl too high maintenance?"
Meeting someone new got off to a slow start for Randy Levine, 35, who could be found nursing a beer by himself in a romantic booth. "It's the story of my life," he said. "I've been stood up by my predate."
But Levine, who lives in Town 'N Country, barely made a dent in his beer before Ryan rushed up with the first of 17 women the sports photographer would talk to that night.
"This is the kind of thing that's right up our alley," said Lisa Robbins, program director with the Tampa JCC and one of the event's organizers. "Connecting Jewish singles to each other is important to us because it fulfills our mission to support the continuity of Jewish life and values."
Jan Lepow, 34, for one, was glad. The high school teacher who lives in Odessa dates only Jewish men.
"If you want to stay within your religion, you have to try harder," she said.
In speed dating protocol, the women remain seated and the men, when the bell rings, move on to the next table. A few of the men, though, had a hard time finding their next date.
"Table seven, table seven," mumbled one as he bumped into another itinerant dater.
"Talk about your wandering Jews," Robbins murmured.
Snippets of conversation were the kind typically heard during any event where singles gather with romance on their minds: What do you do for a living? Why did your previous relationship go south?
"It's an efficient way of dating," said Rosner, the pharmaceutical rep, who has tried it all, from video dating to the classifieds. "Meeting someone in person cuts through it all. It's simple. It's easy. And it takes about an hour and a half."
Jackie Ripley
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