my stint as a speed dating hostess in NYC from 2009-2011

one from the vaults

the urge to quit my current job is making me reflect on all the other shitty jobs i’ve had over the years. anyway, here’s one from the vaults, that you may have already read, about my job as a speed dating hostess in new york city from 2009 to 2011. i hear speed dating is having a resurgence right now as people revolt against the apps. if that’s true, i’d like to throw my hat back in the ring. i’ll do it for $100 cash (adjusted for inflation) and, as always, two drink tickets (no shelf limitations please).

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Getting the Job:

I was working a lot of “gig” jobs at the time, most of which i found through craigslist. while perusing the gigs section one day, i saw an ad for “speed dating host”, thought it sounded hilarious, and responded. i ended up meeting the owner at a bar for the “interview.” he was this little chubby ecuadorian man named “Rich”. he was probably about 35 years old, 5’5, and 170 lbs. he had black spikey gel’d hair and always wore a long black leather duster. he kind of reminded me of a latino hamburglar with a little more drip (just a little).

i was already hosting bar trivia at the time (discussed below). he seemed to be impressed by that so he immediately was like “ok you got the job. i’ll call you with the details for your first event.” the whole interview was weird, i kind of didn’t expect him to actually contact me again. but he did, and the rest was history.

this speed dating company was 100% a complete and utter grift. for all his flaws, i really have to hand it to Rich…he was a real pioneer of the time. somehow, his company was the very first google result for “speed dating nyc.” it was also the second and third result (branded under some different name, that all redirected to a single website). this was the most popular speeding dating service in the city from 2005 to around 2012 or so…whenever speed dating was replaced by the apps. our events were usually well attended and there was virtually no overhead, so i assume Rich was making some srs coin off this. the venues were free. Rich also made me steal office supplies/resources from my trivia company and my 9-5 office job. his only real business expense was paying the hosts / maintaining the website.

i was paid $75 for each event i hosted. he always eventually paid me, but NEVER on time. i remember having to text him “rich, you haven’t paid me for the last five events…if you’re not there at the next event with my money, i’m gonna get there and tell everyone it’s CANCELLED and you’re gonna get 60 requests for a refund!” and he would always show up with my money. he never took this personally. this smarmy motherfucker would just show up smirking and saying “oh, you want money ? thought i paid you already.” he was a scumbag, but a tolerable one.

The Events:

these were the recurring speed dating events the company offered:

• Professional singles aged 21 - 35 (i.e., gen admission / young) - we held 2 events per week every week. these events were usually very well attended, sometimes upwards of 30 men and 30 women.

• professional singles aged 35-50 (i.e., gen admission / old) - 1 event every 2-3 weeks.

• jewish singles - 1 event event every 2 weeks. usually very fun and well-attended events w/ some drama.

• indian singles - 1 event per month.

• african american singles - 1 event per month.

• asian singles - 1 event per month.

• sugardaddy/sugarbaby speed dating - we ran like 3-5 of these over a two year period. these always had an awful turnout of mutant people.

I hosted all of the events except for african american singles (hosted by the boss’s black guy friend named James) and asian speeding dating (hosted by the boss’s asian guy friend named Danny). I mostly saw Danny, who was a little gangster…he had a big diamond earing and wore BAP hoodies. He was eventually “fired” for aggressively hitting on the women after like 5 women left scathing yelp reviews about being harassed by the host, so i started hosting the asian events in like late 2010.

tickets to every event were $35, regardless if you were a man or a woman (unless we were running a groupon or something). most people would buy their tickets online. sometimes we would “reschedule” (read: cancel) events in advance a day or two before the event if the numbers were very poor (for example, like 8 men and 3 women we would cancel). if the numbers were “cusp” Rich would aggressively text me to “try to get the numbers up” meaning i would have go to my friend group and bribe my girl/guy friends (whatever gender we needed) to come to an event in exchange for free drinks. yes we occasionally paid crisis actors to attend our events so that we wouldn’t have to cancel them lol.

Venues:

with the exception of indian speed dating which was held at a relatively nice indian restaurant in flatiron, all of these events were held at the most disgusting dying bars/restaurants in the east village. the venue was a critical part of the grift. speed dating events required a venue that had little to no independent business that had the seating to host 30-60 random people, willing out to give out some free drink tickets in exchange for the prospect of people ordering some food/bev. honestly, our speed dating events probably extended the lifelines of some of these shitholes for a good year or so before they went out of business.

i remember this particularly disgusting french restaurant was my least favorite venue because the owner (some milquetoast blonde french dude with horrible teeth) sexually harassed me nonstop and the restaurant was straight up full of rats. i vividly remember him coming out of the basement with a bottle of wine and like 6 rats scurried out behind him like he was some sort of pied piper / plague king. horrified, i was like “dude, your restaurant has RATS!” he was super offended at that and scoffed “it’s the east village, every restaurant has RATS!” ok!

Pre-Event Prep:

events typically started at 6 p.m. i would leave directly from my office job and show up to the venue at like 5:30. i’d check in with the owner/manager, they’d get me a beer or vodka soda or whatever, and then tell me what they wanted me to sell that night in terms of drink specials and/or food. some of the venues required me to move furniture around so everyone could have a seat, depending on what turnout i was expecting. sometimes i’d do this by myself and sometimes a barback would help me.

people would start trickling in like 15 minutes early. a lot of them would be visibly nervous/awkward/lost so i would usually make some stupid joke like “hey! you must be here for the sugar daddy speed dating!” and watch the panic set in before i hit them with the “just kidding, this is regular speed dating, welcome…let’s get you checked in.” i generally enjoyed hosting the events, but i especially enjoyed running my cheesy jokes on everyone.

after greeting everyone, i would check them in. this entailed me looking at my list of names to confirm they paid, then giving them a blank name tag and tell them to write their name on it, go grab a drink, hang out, and mix/mingle until the event started. i would also tell them to grab their date card and a pen. the date card was just a piece of plain paper that had the company logo, a space to write their name, and then a column to write the names of their matches. again, these events were so low effort, i’m actually shocked we didn’t tell them to bring their own notepads and pens.

rarely did these events start on time. if we had a big turnout, it would take me forever to check everyone in, go through the rules, and seat everyone. if we had a shit turnout, i usually delayed the event and telethon-ed my friend group to get some seat fillers. sometimes i would call the no-shows and leave embarrassing voicemails if they didn't pick-up...."this is your speed dating host calling to discuss your TRUANCY."

once i was ready to start, i would yell something really stupid like “alright! let’s get this show on the rooooad!” lmao. i honestly loved being lame as hell at these events. i would then give the instructions: i’d ask all the ladies to take a seat. ladies were to stay stationary throughout the entire event (“ladies, remember, you are to stay seated at all times. if you leave to go to the bathroom to avoid a horrible man, it means he’s going to come talk to me and that is not allowed!”).

if we had a gender disparity i would address it head on. my favorite joke was “unfortunately, we have 8 more men than women at this event, so fellas, you know what that means…5 of you will be randomly selected…to DIE!” this one usually killed at gen admission events, but I made the mistake of doing this once at an indian speed dating event and all the men looked at me like “you think this is a game, motherfucker?” i never made another joke during indian speed dating again.

i would let everyone know that each date would last exactly 5 minutes. after the ladies sat down, i would seat the men and scream “ready, set, date!” like a fucking maniac. then i’d set my phone timer for 5 minutes and hang back and drink. i loved watching to see who was having a good time / bad time. nothing made me laugh more than seeing an absolutely miserable speed date lmao. at the end of the 5 minutes, i’d ring a giant metal bell (seriously!) and scream “ROTATE!” i’d repeat this cycle for the next 1-3 hours, until all the women looked like they served a full tour in vietnam.

Gender Disparity:

if there was a gender disparity, there would usually be a very sad “conga line” of men queuing to date. sometimes it'd be so bad i felt like i was playing the arcade game "snake" where the giant line of men was just wrapping around the entire bar and closing in on me... if there were too many men, i’d go over and chat them up, offer to get them free drinks, try to keep them occupied until they got up to the seated women. if there were too many women (it did happen!), i’d jump in line and speed date the ladies too so they weren’t just bored & playing on their phones for 20 minutes.

once after an event this chick came up to me and was like “hey i need new gal pals in this city, do you want to hang out sometime?” i was like yeah, sure. her name was ally or something…she was a bona fide MORTICIAN. like she actually embalmed people. she was super cute but she ended up having sex with all of my guy friends and getting weird and clingy about it. all my friends started calling her Morticia behind her back and then eventually when the relationship soured it was shortened to just MORT before everyone, including me, iced her entirely. RIP Mort <3

Screening / Quality Control

obviously there was zero screening or quality control with speed dating. anyone with $35 to spend could participate in any event, no questions asked! our gen admission events were always a mixed bag. these events were typically pretty well attended (like 15-30 men and 15-30 women). every once in a blue moon, an event would be like 50 pretty normal, relatively attractive people. other nights i would be like “oh my fucking god what the fuck is wrong with EVERYONE here”. very occasionally the men were cooler/cuter than the women. but on average the women skewed much better than the men, as they tended to speed date in big groups.

i regularly dealt with “problem guys.” they were usually men that showed up super drunk. in retrospect i shouldn’t have allowed them to participate, but i was drinking too so it would have been kind of hypocritical for me to deny them entry into one of my events. i remember checking some guy into an event and thinking “goddamn he’s loaded lol.” well 20 minutes into the event he PROJECTILE VOMITED on a woman. after she cleaned herself up she demanded a refund from me and i had to say “uhh i’m only authorized to give you your next event free.” she was visibly shaking & screaming “WHY WOULD I EVEr DO THIS AGAIN?” and i was like “fair…very fair!” Rich would never give refunds, he just told people to dispute it on their credit card.

one guy was a “repeater” — he showed up to one of my events every couple of weeks. he was a total creep, but he would occasionally get laid at our events so i guess it worked for him. one dude set a table on fire once and had to be escorted out by bar security. that was probably the craziest thing i ever saw. he did not match. i also remember one 6’7 Lurch looking guy from moldova that did not speak ANY english. i know because i checked him in and it took me like 5 full minutes to even get this guy’s name. i’m not sure he knew how to read/write because i had to help him write down women’s names. he did not match (see fellas, height isn't everything).

sometimes annoying women would come to me halfway through an event and say something like “uh, i thought that this event was for single professionals? half of these men don’t have jobs.” like sorry bitch our “broke loser speed dating” event was full. more commonly women would just leave halfway through. interestingly, they wouldn’t usually irish exit. instead, they’d come to me to return their pen and politely say “i’m sorry, we’re leaving…” i’d feign distress and be like “oh nooo, you’re LEAVING?!?! c'mon, if you finish the event, i’ll get you guys a round of drinks and a coupon. it sucks if people leave :*(” this worked like 50% of the time. women b feelin' guilty for no reason lol.

somehow word got out that the jewish singles events had “good men.” they were educated. they had jobs (usually lots of doctors and lawyers). they respected their moms. they liked Seinfeld. i had 2 jewish speed dating events where women came up to me and said in a hushed tone “I just want to let you know that the woman at the second to last table is NOT jewish.” like damn, what do you want me to do about it? make her wear a little badge or something? (this joke bombed.)

After the Event:

depending on the turnout, the events typically lasted 90 minutes to THREE HOURS. that’s right, three hours! sign of the times. sometimes people would stay at the venue after the event and continue to drink and have a good time. occasionally i would stay and drink with them. not to get all saccharine about it, but it always warmed my heart to see a bunch of strangers connect after one of my events. i’d occasionally see couples making out, sometimes i’d see big groups of random guys and girls just chilling, ordering shots, chatting, etc. i like to think that at least a few people forged meaningful relationships with someone they met at one of my events. this always brings a smile to my face...but then i realize that statistically speaking it’s more likely that they got stalked, harassed or assaulted and that smile gets turned upside down!

Matches:

i would compute the week’s matches on a saturday or sunday morning. this involved looking at everyone’s match cards and then writing down their matches in a notebook. then i would look at my notes and see what the overlap between names was. did my mushy oatmeal brain ever fuck this up? mm yes absolutely. good thing we live in a samsara and they can try again next time.

at the time, i lived in a tiny apartment with a graphic designer chick who designed all the websites for mass tort class action lawsuits (gynecomastia, mesothelioma, collapsed vaginal mesh, etc.) and a finance bro (yes he banged MORT). my favorite thing do to was to sit on the sofa on a sunday morning and watch the bro roommate play Call of Duty while i tallied the matches. i’d be so hungover and nothing tickled me more than listening to him get bullied by random people online. whenever someone called him the f-slur i would always yell at him to put the headset on and fight back and he would very calmly say “no, that’s a 12 year old.” he never wanted to put the headset on which i thought was very lame!

after i tallied the matches i’d send everyone an email from the company email address, regardless if they matched or not. People who didn’t match would get 20% off their next event. most of the time people would get at least 1 match. the best part of this luddite system was that people often took notes on the back of their match cards so i got to read all the tea. people would write the most fucked up shit “cindy - big natties / daddy issues” “derrick - loser, owns lizard.” i would read the good ones out loud to my roommates. a lot of times the match cards from men would just have “ALL” scrawled on them in GIANT letters instead of any women’s names, and match cards from women would be blank or say “none!” in tiny regular sized letters.

Indian Singles & “Sugar Daddy” Events:

i dreaded these events so fucking much. hosting indian speed dating was usually not fun for me for a variety of reasons including the following:

• the customers generally tended to take the event much more seriously, i think some of them were truly expecting to find a spouse thru speed dating

• sometimes people would be actually from india so there’d be a language/culture barrier that i frankly was not equipped to handle as a drunk white girl

• these events usually had the worst gender disparities, like a 4:1 guy to girl ratio

• these events had the highest number of non-drinkers, which was my no. 1 resource to prevent and resolve complaints

i remember one guy angry-complaining to me because there were like 20 guys and 8 women, and he found himself at the very end of the man-queue (the worst). he wasn’t drinking so in a panic i offered to buy him samosas and he was like “no! i don’t want samosas, i want more women!” which is a line i truly will never forget. and i couldn’t even say something stupid i’d normally say during a gen. admission event like “sorry i’m not a pussy wizard” because he was so MAD, SINGLE, and SOBER.

the other event i absolutely dreaded was “Sugar Daddy / Sugar Baby” speed dating. hardly anyone ever showed up to these events but my boss refused to cancel them for one single reason: he and his friends always wanted to participate as the “sugar daddies” lol. this was totally wild, but my boss would randomly arrive with the other “hosts” (James and Danny) and just point blank tell me “we’re dating tonight!” not shockingly this event attracted complete nutjobs. i think a lot of the women who showed up were actual hookers (and not high end ones). i swear to god actual pimps would also show up. when i was giving the dating instructions i would just be like “Remember…for everyone to… uhh…BE CAREFUL TONIGHT!” we only ran a few of these events but jesus christ they were bad, i kind of hate that i was complicit in it for just 75 smackaroos.

Singles Parties:

in addition to the speed dating events, we organized “singles parties” which was the most amazing scam ever. all this entailed was reserving a large failing nightclub on an off-night and charging $50 for tickets to attend this carnival of lost souls. the singles party venues were Slate (flatiron), 235 Fifth (nomad), and Greenhouse (soho).

singles parties were amazing because i didn’t have to do anything except sit there and steal money. we usually hosted these events jointly with another singles company. i think they thought that it would reduce the risk of theft if they had two women working the desk/cash box, but we were just emboldened by each other’s complete and utter contempt for our respective bosses. i remember hosting this one singles party (like 500+ people) at greenhouse with this GORGEOUS british woman. she was impossibly cool. as soon as i sat down she was like “so how much we gonna clear tonight, babe?” informing me that we could just pocket all the cash and no one would know. the manager of club kept coming out to “check on us.” he looked like john taffer from Bar Rescue, and had cocaine all over his face. i remember she was so mean to him, and each time he walked away she would say “oh no, he’s absolutely MENTAL!” in her posh british accent which made me giggle like a 12 y/o boy. this is for another post, but eventually her cousin (this kinda buff, kinda nerdy-cute pakistani guy) showed up to this event and conned me into going to the most awkward, truly soul-crushing Succession-esque rich people party i’ve ever been into my entire life. we were eventually asked to leave because he wasn’t really invited in the first place lol.

Complaints:

holy shit we received sooo many complaints. like i said, Rich never gave refunds so people would leave the most unhinged reviews (on yelp mostly). the best reviews are from women rage-complaining about Rich and the male “hosts” participating in the events/being all around scumbags. now for the funniest part of my post: one of Rich’s other employees, a very basic looking blonde white woman named “Jen” would respond ALL to complaints on every platform (yelp, google, betterbusinessbureau).

it only took me like 6 weeks of working there to get Rich to admit to me that there was no “Jen” and that he was actually just pretending to be a 25 year old white woman. we had a beer together after an event once and he straight up looked me in the eye and said “you need a fake white woman for complaints. you can’t run a business without one.” no idea where he stole this woman’s picture from, but sis is straight up wearing a SOMBRERO in her PFP. he had a fake linkedin for this bitch and everything! Jen is still active and has worked at the company for over 16 years, his longest-standing employee lmao.

once he ran a groupon for a HUGE valentines day singles event at Slate, and Rich bait-and-switched everyone by advertising that there would be speed dating at the party but it was just a regular lame singles party (no speed dating, organized mixers, icebreakers, etc.). we received well-over a hundred complaints about that alone. my girl Jen didn’t sleep for weeks!

Other misc gigs i took during this time:

bar trivia host: hosting bar trivia was so much worse than speed dating. i hosted 2 events a week, and received $50 per event regardless if people wanted to play or not (i needed 3 teams to start the game), and $10 for each additional team in excess of three teams. many nights no one wanted to play so i just had to walk around & guilt/annoy people into playing (hated this). sometimes i said i had a baby at home and i wouldn’t get paid if people didn’t play, which worked a lot actually.

i had to bring all the tech/sound equipment to the bar in a wheelie suitcase. i HATED lugging that thing all over the city (which wasn't very accessible at the time). one time i got home at like midnight on a weekday and was so tired i just dropped the suitcase in the middle of our dark hallway. my bro roommate got home like 30 minutes later & tripped over it and hurt himself pretty bad. he heard me laughing from my bedroom and SCREAMED at me lol. i felt kind of bad about it because literally 2 weeks before this i was candyflipping at a bar with a friend and got home at like 4:30 in the morning. i saw that bro roommate wasn’t home (probably was out banging Mort), so i hid behind the oven waiting to jump out and scare him (i didn’t have anything better to do). i hid there for like 90 minutes and when he finally got home i jumped out and yelled “bleh!”. he freaked out, karate chopped me in the shoulder, and screamed “fuck youuuuuuu!” very much worth it.

per diem parade elf: i remember taking this gig to be an elf for santa photos at a christmas parade thing in either jersey city or hoboken (can’t remember but it was definitely jersey). they offered to pay me $150 for the day (like 4 hours of work) just for doing elf shit. i was supposed to be there at like 10 a.m. on a saturday. obviously i was super fucked up and it was like 4 degrees outside that morning, so i just totally blew it off without giving any notice. the guy (santa?!) called me at like 9:55 and i have no idea why, but i answered the phone. obviously he immediately said “Hey where are you?” and i was just like “yeah i’m not coming” and he was like “What?!” and i 100% remember saying “looks like christmas is RUINED” and he hung up on me. hehe

art gallery bartender: this recurring gig was awesome, all i had to do was wear a white blouse, black pants, and serve white or red wine to rich art people. didn’t have to exchange cash since the drinks were free, and the people tipped a few bucks on every glass for some reason. $100 + tips for 4 hours of work and every once in a while i’d get a free bottle of wine or something. i didn’t do do this regularly, probably like 4 times a year, but it was the best.

i work a normal job now but look fondly upon my gig years. had a hearty cackle today remembering Rich and his fucking white girl sombrero sock puppet account.