How Long Does it Take to Fall in Love?

The answer is supposedly three minutes. One hundred eighty seconds of salutations and small talk leads up to that final moment.  Are they the one?  You eye your partner, searching for a clue of sorts. Clutching onto your pencil and card you are eventually a forced to make a decision. Is number 21 a friend or something more? The three minutes are up and you are on to the next one.

This past Friday, my friends and I decided to participate in a charity speed dating event. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly expecting much. Wearing a pair of old jeans and a simple t-shirt, I looked more prepared to down a box of Dibs than I was to meet my soul mate. But, according to my roommate’s previous experiences with speed dating, I didn’t see any reason to dress up for the occasion. “There were hardly any boys. You’ll probably end up eating food and making Valentine’s Day cards. That’s what happened to me,” she had said. So, one can imagine my (as well as my friends) horror when we walked into the dating dungeon that was the YK lounge. There were boys everywhere and nothing to eat! Immediately I cursed my roommate, and proceeded to apologize profusely to my friends who, like me, were in less than glamorous outfits. Though the evening had started off in panic,  I slowly started having fun and had a decent time. No, I didn’t find my person or anything like that, but I did run into quite an array of people, both nice and interesting (one guy told my friend that he wanted to get a tattoo of his penis…. ON HIS PENIS!!!!).

Besides the people, I think the whole speed dating experience was definitely an intriguing look at what romance has become in today’s society. Unfortunately, gone are the days where feelings are organically fostered and nurtured. Our lives have seemingly transformed from a Jane Austen novel (at least that’s how I imagine my life in the 1800s) into a technologically charged and “instant gratification” filled existence. It’s a little sad that we don’t have more than three minutes (or the seconds it takes for eHarmony’s web page to load) to devout to our love lives. In the spirit of JT and the BEP, where is the romance?