COURTESY OF HURRYDATE In speed-dating events, singles gather for one-on-one dates, timed at a few minutes each     Metro Bad Man on Campus, Part 2 Legal experts say Eduardo Padrón's real estate deal to buy the Freedom Tower looks more like a criminal conspiracy Kulchur He's Back From Iraq Miami may be a great news town, but it's a bore compared with Baghdad Letters Letters from the Issue of July 3-9, 2003

This is Kerry's first speed-dating event, and it was not an easy thing for her to do. She closed the registration Webpage twice before finally registering, then didn't tell anyone other than her mother and brother. "I guess if it was a success, I'd tell people that I went," she says. "But since it's not a success yet, I don't want to talk about it. I'm just one of those people who hate to fail at things."

For Kerry, simply attending a speed-dating event is in some way an admission of failure. "I was popular in high school, popular in college. I always had dates," she recounts. "Now, to not have people flocking to me.... My ego says the right man will see me walking down the street and come running. But that's not what happens in the real world. It was hard to admit that I had to do something."

Overall Kerry is impressed with the quality of men. "They were just normal people.... One guy said, 'I didn't think that people actually do this. I wanted to check it out.' I was like, 'What a rude guy.' The reason I wanted to go, the hope that I had, was that I would be sitting across the table from people who were going, 'Yeah, it really is difficult to meet people.' It's kind of disappointing to be a part of someone's little experiment."

I suggest to Kerry that maybe this guy only said that because he is also embarrassed about participating. She agrees this could be true. "But either way," she counters, "I'm immediately turned off. Either you're honest about not wanting to meet people, and I don't want to be sitting with you, or you're lying about not wanting to meet people, and I don't want to be sitting with you."

Even though she will not attempt to match with any of tonight's guys, Kerry remains hopeful for future 8minuteDating events. "I like the concept of sitting two people at a table. There's that awkwardness when you're walking up and starting a conversation with someone and then you find out they're married and there's the wife around the corner giving you a dirty look. This event takes out the awkwardness of starting a conversation."

Sometime in July, Kerry will participate in a single-parent event, which Tracie Gordon is hosting in part because Kerry requested it. "I think that will be the best for me," she says. The only other thing Kerry dislikes about this event is that she didn't have a chance to meet every guy here. (A gripe unique to 8minuteDating.)

With a degree from Tufts University in human factors engineering, Tom Jaffee, the company's 40-year-old founder, sticks by the length of his dates. "There's a concept called Miller's Magic Number -- seven plus or minus two -- which is the number of things your mind can contain at a given time," he explains. "I think people have sort of had enough after having eight or nine dates. The eight minutes is designed to give people enough time to talk about themselves and make an educated decision. And if eight minutes seems like drudgery, you know you probably don't want to spend your precious time with that person anyway."

To what does Jaffee attribute the growing popularity of speed dating? "Word of mouth has been a huge factor. Another factor that fits in is how society has changed. More and more so, people are busy and frustrated with playing games. Areas are transient. People don't have the depth of friends or family to fix them up. This is a very efficient, cost-effective way to meet people. Twenty-eight dollars for the entire evening. That's less than four dollars per date. And what we do is sort of like online dating in reverse. With online dating you exchange information first, and then you get to meet. We're the other way around.

"When you get there, people are kind of nervous," Jaffee continues. "But as soon as they get to that first date all the tension sort of dissipates. A room of single people all interested in meeting someone, they're all about your age and there are no games. They realize this is about as cool as it gets."

John Warburton says "as cool as it gets" is not how he would describe the experience for someone like Kerry. "If they're walking in there with stigmas, they may be laughing on the outside, but they're not laughing on the inside," he muses. "If she goes to those places and does that activity, she can be perceived as a woman longing for, wishing for, wanting -- making her feel more of her vulnerability. Then she feels ashamed about her feelings of vulnerability, which everybody does."

- HurryDate -

I arrive at Fort Lauderdale's Olé Olé at the Las Olas Riverfront in the middle of a monsoon, which is probably why a few of the women scheduled for this event don't show up. HurryDate coordinator Dan Benjamin, a single 36-year-old mortgage broker and board member of Young Professionals of Covenant House, presides over the gathering dressed in a referee's jersey, complete with whistle around his neck. He grew up in Hollywood and, like HurryDate founders Ken Deckinger and Adele Testani, graduated from the University of Florida. Dan encourages me to participate. Remembering what Kerry said about feeling like an "experiment" for men who weren't really there to meet people, I hesitate. He assures me the table would just be empty if I abstain, so I write "New Times" under "Marli #15." Dan gives me a HurryDate scorecard adorned with the company logo: a martini olive with a heart inside it.

As a short film, this moment of my life would be called Chasing Ben Affleck (if you know what I mean -- wink), so I'm probably the least nervous. Like 8minuteDating, the men here are, for the most part, handsome, employed, and sweet.

With about 25 dates in one night, singles at HurryDate meet more people in a sitting than at 8minuteDating or Pre-Dating. To accomplish this the coordinators keep each date at a brief three minutes, after which time the men move to the next table. (A gesture of speed-dating chivalry.)

"We picked three minutes for a very specific reason," says 27-year-old Adele Testani. "It's enough time to figure out if there's a basic attraction. It's also short enough that if you don't like the person, you don't have to spend an eternity with them."

A lanky German man wearing a tie is animated and endearing until a piece of spittle flies from his mouth and lands on my face. It's a small and simple misfortune that could happen to anyone, I remind myself, and it wasn't his fault. Still it disables my ability to keep up the staccato of small talk, so I just smile at whatever he's saying, which he takes as a reason to smile wider and stare at me without blinking or looking away. (What kind of gesture would Warburton consider this?) I feel like a strudel two inches from Augustus Gloop -- "Don't lose your head, Augustus. We wouldn't want anyone to lose that now, would we?" -- when the bell finally rings and the next date approaches.

He has a shaved head and ruddy, cupid-bow lips that match the red T-shirt stretched taut over his broad, muscular shoulders. In my eyes he seems to be the most handsome guy in the room. He's also the first HurryDate I have after my Ketel One and tonic kicks in.

"You seem like a good guy."

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