A night of speed dating, sponsored by The Free Press and the Portland Events Board (PEB), was held at Portland’s Woodbury Campus Center on Oct. 5. The event was free for all students and included an award-winning locals DJ Shade, and hip-hop act Lab 7.
Jeff Farnham, a senior business major and PEB president, said the goal of the free event was “To get people interacting with each other and get people communicating more.”
“There’s so many people at school I just don’t know,” he said, “and you got to meet 30 (at once).
“It was successful,” said Farnham. “We got a good group of people. It wasn’t what I was hoping we’d get, but we had a good turnout,” adding that just under 100 people attended.
“It seemed like a lot of attractive people were there,” Farnham continued. “I felt there was a quality mix of people, a lot of attractive people and it seemed like a lot of catches were available, more than I expected.”
“There’s some interesting people,” said student Amy Desrosiers. “I mean, you know, not like crazy desperate people you usually find at these things. I’m glad there’s a bar.”
A small corner bar had been set up by Aramark, the food service company employed by USM. Beer, wine and mixed drinks were available for legal drinkers, as well as a food table serving vegetables and dip, chips and jalapeño poppers.
“I think everyone that was there was drinking,” said Farnham. “I don’t think many people were underage. I think that’s what was missing, there wasn’t enough younger people. It seemed everyone that was there had a drink in their hand.”
Shuttle buses were hired to extended their schedules, transporting Gorham students to and from Portland until 1 a.m.
The first two hours of dating were interspersed with drawings for door prizes from a free raffle. Prizes included day tickets to Sugarloaf and Portland Pirates hockey tickets.
“I’ve met a lot of fun people,” said 26-year-old history major Chris Strout. “I don’t see any relationships, but.”
Sri Lanka, a ninth-year physics major, said this was her second speed dating experience at USM. “Last year, they had speed dating for the Ski and Ride club and it was a lot of fun,” she said, “and I came going, ‘You know what, this is going to be totally sketchy,’ but I brought a friend along and I was like, ‘Whatever. It’s might be sketchy but it’ll be fun,’ and so we came and we had a blast.
“And so when I saw the flyers up for speed dating this year I thought, ‘You know what, it’s going to be a good time.'”
Not everyone’s experience was as positive. Communications major Michael Merrill, 21, was put in an awkward position by one student.
“There was this guy and he was foreign,” she said, adding that the young man repeatedly asked her name. “And he said, ‘Oh, it’s Michael,” then touched her name tag on her breast “three times.”
The number of men was almost double of the number of women and seemed a major point of contention. “There are not enough girls,” said one student, who asked not to be identified.
“I was a little bit confused as to what the situation was. I thought there was going to be more strict, like, set-up because I was taking down name tags in my head, ‘Oh, I like number one, I like number two, number 14 is a possibility.’ So apparently you have to work your magic, like, soon.you really got to seal the deal.”
He referred to the fact that there was no system in place to match dates up after the event. Each date lasted three to four minutes, but after that it was up to the daters to make moves.
A lower number of females than males was problematic for some.
“I was sitting over here,” the anonymous student said, indicating one of the seats, “I was having a really good time until about halfway through when I got booted out because there were too many guys that needed seats. I only got through half the girls here. That was a 50 percent loss in my gross product, there was significant damage to my personal interest.”
The dating rounds, soundtracked by DJ Shade spinning in the background, were followed by Lab 7, a hip-hop group from the Portland area. Local break dancers performed as the band performed as well.
“I had a few people bump into me at classes and said they really enjoyed it,” Farnham said. PEB’s next scheduled event happens Nov. 6. USM students can pick up free tickets for a movie pre-screening at the Nickelodeon Theatre in downtown Portland. The movie is “Lions for Lambs,” starring Tom Cruise and Robert Redford. Tickets are available at the Student Activity Center in Woodbury.