The key is to ask questions. Don't talk about yourself. What you want to show is that you are interested in the person. You do that by asking them to talk about themselves. Where are you from? What do you do? (I hate this question, becasue I don't think people should define themselves by their work. But people do, and they want to know about this) What do you do for fun? My favorite question is: What's cool? What's the best book, or film, or music, or band, or comic book you've discovered lately? I didn't know what Speed Dating was at first, since I don't watch TV. It's a SoCal thing that was popularized by being mentioned in some TV shows. For those like me who didn't know, it's a social gathering in which you 'interview' people for only a few minutes at a time at first. That way you get to meet a lot of people, and since most people know right away who they like and who they don't like, it makes sense. It would be much faster than meeting one person at a time, especially if you didn't like them.

does speed dating end up with a quickie as a fulfilment of the process?