Queer Speed Dating at Smalls
happy valentine's day!
The moment I heard about Queer Speed Dating at Smalls, I was in - I had just gotten changed at the rock gym and several people sent me the announcement in my DMs (which, you know, funny compliment but go off). I got a ticket that instant. I actually got two tickets, one for myself and for a friend, but before I could surprise them they texted me that they had also gotten a ticket to speed dating. For the next week it was coming up in conversation, and all my partnered friends were hyping me up, talking to me about strategy.
I had a handful of reservations going into the evening. I like to think of myself as pretty plugged into the queer community in Portland, and everyone is always complaining about Portland being a teeny tiny little town. Am I just going to see people who I already know? On top of that, lately I’ve been growing through a growing pain around my gender identity and the way that that interacts with other people in the queer community - so I was wondering, “Am I gonna spend a whole evening talking to people who want to be talking to a girl?”
Going to an event at Smalls, I assumed that the scene was going to be mostly people who wanted to date girls - the West End Coffee shop has a bit of a sapphic reputation. And for the most part, my suspicion was confirmed. It is challenging to really eloquently create queer spaces that have both intentionality and inclusively - especially queer spaces that are for what this was, dating. Because “Queer” is an expansive word that includes people who have same-gender attraction, who have an expansive sense of attraction, people who have queer genders - so much - I thought it was kind of a vague label for these purposes. The Queer Speed Dating at Smalls did lean towards lesbians and people who may have at one time been a lesbian. If someone wanted to do an event like this “for the boys,” it might be welcome!
Knowing the location, I was also curious to see how they made use of the Space. There were 12 stations where 24 people moved in opposite directions, stopping for five minutes to chat with their new date. Smalls has a cafe and a shop section, and a few stations were set up among the merchandise (including my home station, Table #8). The best table was number six, hidden in a little nook and sort of away from everyone. They had pink punch bowls with spiked and non-alcoholic options, little chocolate kisses strewn about the room. There were little ice breaker questions at every table, but I didn’t really use any of them.
It was fun being in what felt like a tilt-a-whirl of conversation. We only had five minutes to talk, and the energy increased the further into the evening you went - by the time I was at my fourth “date,” I kind of knew what conversations I was looking for. Everyone would plop down in their chair with a little woah feeling, and suss out for a few minutes whether or not you wanted to hang out with somebody again. And I did meet a handful of people that I would like to see again!
Afterward, there was a little after party at Cocktail Mary where we had a chance to hang out a bit more casually - I thought this was a really good touch because I sat with someone in the speed dating and thought they were cool, that it would be fun to be friends, but it wasn’t until we got to hang out at Mary that I was like, “Oh I have a crush on this person.”
The only other critique that I heard was that people were disappointed that they didn’t get to talk to everyone at Speed Dating - I kind of knew that we were probably going to get to only talk to half of the room, but this was a thing I heard a couple people say at the after party. And sure, there was a cute person with a bleached blonde pixie cut in a purple sweater who I didn’t have the opportunity to talk to. But all in all, Queer Speed Dating very much lived up to the hype, happy Valentine’s Day, living in Portland is awesome.