Speed dating: Why are women more choosy?

Speed daters Image copyright AFP


Trying to work out who is single in a bar, approach them and asking them out before you know anything about them is not a very efficient way of finding a girlfriend or boyfriend.

There is a solution - speed dating, where a group of singles meet at an event in a bar or cafe. The men move from table to table for a fleeting date with each woman, lasting typically between three to four minutes.






This controlled environment is something that excites some economists as they are perfect for observing market forces at work- in this case the dating market.

But why are men less fussy?

"This is something that evolutionary psychologists and biologists do recognise," says Belot. "We know that across a whole range of behaviours women tend to take fewer risks.


Other academic work suggests that because men historically have not been so involved in parenting, they devote more time to "short-term mating", so they're not looking further than a date.

A study in the US, on the other hand, suggests the difference might simply be down to the seating arrangements, because the convention is for women to sit still at the events, while men move round and approach each woman.

The researchers found that when the roles were reversed at speed dating events, and women moved round to approach the men, they found that women made more offers than they did at events when they sat still. One possible theory is that the person who moves has more confidence.

Belot and Francesconi's study also took all the data provided by each person from their profile, to work out what attributes people were looking for in a potential mate.

"For both men and women, education and professional status matters. We found that women prefer taller men and men prefer slimmer women," says Belot.

Perhaps this is not a big surprise. But it turns out - people are often ready to compromise on these preferences.


Belot thinks one explanation is that people who go to a speed dating event assume that is representative of the pool of available single people.


People marry people very similar to themselves - from the same socio-economic background for example. And economists argue that this stops social mobility between generations.



"It's interesting to see [with speed dating] it gives a bit of hope that if you do mix people, they do tend to mix."

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