Image by Ellen von Unwerth via superwrong.
Valentine’s Day approaches with cruel speed for some of us, creeps up too slowly for others, or if you’re the part of me facing my inbox clogged with cheesy useless press releases, it is a long walk to the weekend comprised of eye-rolling dread. I’m about to start blogging some fairly useful V-Day tips and articles because I actually do like the holiday very much, but that PR-weary part of me really got an evil smile when I read Can hate dating help you find love? Screw speed dating and all its hyped saccharin for Valentine’s Day saps; tape up your knuckles and look at the culture aiming to make matches with right hooks, not the right pick-up lines. It’s all the product of Down With Dating, a site for those who are *over* Valentine’s Day, for sure. They need to franchise that concept to the US, stat. Snip:
(…) The first dater I met was a woman called Ruth, who suggested that I try ‘hate dating’. She describes it as “like speed dating, except rather than sell yourself you row and hurl abuse at each other, or confess deep and lasting hatreds of seemingly innocuous things.” Ruth recommends hate dating for people who are looking for a lasting relationship: “You have to be compatible in the way that you argue otherwise a relationship won’t last,” she says. “It’s no good if one of you sulks and the other one throws plates at the wall. You won’t resolve anything like that.”
Speed hating is the brainchild of Mike Toller and Carl Hill, who run a variety of club nights and dating events under the Feeling Gloomy banner. Their USP is their ability to fill dance floors with sad songs and take the mickey out of misery.
The event I went along to isn’t part of a club night. It’s a stand-alone dating event in a tiny room above a pub in London’s West End. On the way in everyone is given a fake name: Elvis, Ernest, Englebert, Cruella, Cecily, Cynthia and so on. Most of the women have come in pairs but some of the men have arrived alone. Toller and Hill are fantastic hosts. They are incredibly friendly and seem to have eyes in the back of their heads, watching for anyone who looks lost.
We sit at a long table, gents on one side, ladies on the other. Kirk de Vere (aka Hill), clad in wide-striped blazer and clashing cravat, instructs us to “Let the hating commence.” (…read more, guardian.co.uk)
