RelationshipFilter

December 20, 2012 12:47 PM

RelationshipFilter: Date Lab from The Washington Post and Dinner With Cupid from The Boston Globe are both columns that follow couples before and after their first blind date.
posted by OmieWise (15 comments total)

I've seen this in the Boston Globe magazine since its inception, and I do not, not understand the appeal whatsoever. Hey, let's gawk at people in awkward/embarrassing situations! But then, I don't understand the appeal of reality television either, so there's that.
posted by Melismata at 12:50 PM on December 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Back when I read the Post regularly, I would always check out Date Lab. As I recall, the dates seldom ended well. Very few couples reported they went out on a second date, let alone went on to form a relationship. Also it seemed like the guys were dummies most of the time.
posted by Cash4Lead at 12:52 PM on December 20, 2012

I had a blind date in 1987, although no newspapers were involved. We are still married. It can work out.
posted by COD at 12:54 PM on December 20, 2012

My marriage is also the product of a blind date. I'm sure glad no journalists were tracking us, though. There's nothing like self consciousness to mess with your mind.
posted by bearwife at 12:59 PM on December 20, 2012

There's also the Blind Date feature from the Guardian that does the same thing. British people seem more polite in their rejections.
posted by peacheater at 1:02 PM on December 20, 2012

Some gay magazine (Genre maybe) used to have a feature like that and I always found it weird that the dates never, ever seemed to end in sex and then I realized people are probably on their best behavior when their dates are getting published for public consumption and then I vowed never to go on a date for public consumption.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:27 PM on December 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Abovethelaw, a gossipy website for U.S. lawyers and law students, has a courtship connections feature that does this same thing. I haven't read it in a while, but I remember the post-date debriefings as being pretty harsh.
posted by Area Man at 1:48 PM on December 20, 2012

I had two friends participate in WaPo's Date Lab. One ended up on a pretty disastrous blind date (he was all but called a loser by the girl was he matched with.) The other friend is still with the guy she met, 2-3 years on.
posted by Vhanudux at 2:04 PM on December 20, 2012

I've never had a blind date. My OKC profile has no photos, but I still get the very occasional message. The message says "you sound sort of interesting, but srsly pix nao!" Even the guys who write things like "I'm looking for people to play Settlers with."
posted by Nomyte at 5:27 PM on December 20, 2012

I LOVE Date Lab! I wish there were some way to see more long-term follow-up from the people featured - a lot of times it ends with them in the process of planning a second or third date, and you can't tell if they actually really want to go out again and haven't been able to schedule something or they're just letting things fizzle out. While I agree with Cash4Lead that it seems like it usually doesn't go anywhere, I also feel like most of the participants try to say nice-ish things about the date and not be total jerks. It would be kind of entertaining to see more epic train wrecks. An acquaintance from college was featured once and came off as pleasant but bland - very different from my perception of him as really intense and opinionated. Also, my best friend has applied repeatedly with no luck yet - I wonder how they select people?
posted by naoko at 6:44 PM on December 20, 2012

Dinner with Cupid deconstructed
posted by adamg at 8:20 PM on December 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Dating is like the screeching of a modem trying to synchronize.
posted by srboisvert at 7:17 AM on December 21, 2012 [5 favorites]

My gran and grandad's awful marriage (nowadays, they wouldn't have been forced by their relatives to marry) was the result of a blind double-date where each of their dates didn't show up. Then (it was during the war and he was a firefighter, so they were constantly on call sent all over the country, not seeing home from one week to the next, and several teams were killed around him - e.g. from oil depot fires, he had loads of stories like bomb was dropped i managed to leap over a 6foot high wall (he was physically that super-man-ish - and then he dropped dead of a stroke at 59) other guys died) he used to (god knows why, maybe because his mother hated him because he wasn't a girl - she didn't even let him stay in school after it stopped being compulsory, i think 12 or 14, yet paid for boarding schools for his sisters) anyway, he used to come in and crash on the floor or sofa at my gran's because he'd met her once, so her mother said she had to get married to him and move out, she couldn't stand this, or she must tell him to scram for good, knowing my gran she felt bad for him. Marriage! From a blind date where half the people didn't show up!
posted by maiamaia at 4:09 PM on December 22, 2012

I'll add, that Plenty of Fish said it could find me a marriage partner using its special dating algorithm and paired me with - a 24year old muslim fundamentalist 200 miles away. (I'm 40. I want someone age 40-41. Whereas gender isn't important.) Still, i didn't actually try it.
posted by maiamaia at 4:12 PM on December 22, 2012

If anyone is still reading: Just read a bit more info about Dinner with Cupid at the boston.com web site: of all the people who apply to be featured in DWC, 75% are women. That seems to be the case for about 100% of the "singles events" that I check out in this area. Hmmm.
posted by Melismata at 2:18 PM on January 2, 2013