speed dating

Speed dating is apparently a good way for busy single people to meet new people in a short period of time. To my understanding you talk to another person every certain number of minutes and then at the end you decided whom you would like to meet again. This form of dating has become very popular all over the world and its inventors have surely increased their bank balance significantly along the way.

Yesterday, my training programme said I should jog around for two hours. This is a long time to go alone, along the gloomy streets of London. But luckily I got company. I had met the boy only once before, at training, but he promised to keep me company, for the best part of my run.

Two hours with someone is quite a long time. The slow(ish) pace gives you the opportunity to talk, but slow climbs or few too many tourists serve as a logical explanation for what could otherwise be an uncomfortable silence.

Running along the Thames, through the Borough. Up the Nancy’s steps (these are the steps that used to lead down to the river and consistes of three flights. Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards the Thames. At this point the lower steps widen so that a person turning the angle of the wall is necessarily unseen by any others on the stairs who chance to be above him, if only a step. In Oliver Twist, Nancy has her fateful conversation with Mr Brownlow at these stairs and it is because of the way the stairs are built that Noah Claypole is able to conceal himself, while listening to what was being said) – a good point to turn the conversation into literature and the types of books the other person likes to read.

A bad street musician. Do you play any instrument?

And those annoying tourists, that force you to stay a step behind your running partner give you the opportunity to check out in what kind of package all that internal beauty comes in. (Do not try to tell me that looks do not matter. We all know they do.)

When I was jogging alone, the last bit home, I realised that I should start marketing my new “speed” dating concept to the wider audience. Not only do you get an excellent workout (indeed something desperately needed by the increasingly sizeable bunch of office workers) but you also get a rather through picture of the person you are with. If they ask you out again, you know that it is not only because of your looks (the red, sweaty face just is not your usual synonym to beauty) but because of something you said or didn’t say during the run. And in the worse case, you just pick up the pace and leave him behind. Too much of hurt ego for a man to call you again after that.