Korean group blind dates, in Singapore
Four of them. One evening. You decide.
A first date is one person and two hours, and you know inside ten minutes.
This is the other shape. Four single women, four single men, one table, a drink after work. Bring a friend and it stops being a blind date at all — it's your night out, with four people you haven't met yet.
S$25 a seat, about what one cocktail costs. Drinks are yours to settle with the bar.
- Wed, 19 Aug7pmFirst to put their name down
- Wed, 26 Aug7pmFirst to put their name down
- Wed, 2 Sept7pmFirst to put their name down
Bring your own side of the table
This is what makes it a Wednesday out rather than an appointment.
Come with one friend, or two, and half your side is people you already like. You arrive together, you leave together, and you have somebody to compare notes with on the way home.
Nobody's place waits on anybody else — you each put your own name down and pay your own seat.
You don't have to decide now. Put your name down on your own, and the link to send them is waiting on your page afterwards.
Everyone at your table
Works where they say they do
A code to a work or school address, which a personal one can't fake. Nobody is told where — only that it checked out.
Is single, and says so
Asked directly, on the record, before anybody is seated. It's the one thing the other seven are told about you.
Has a face and a name
A photo and a real profile. Not shown to anyone before the night — it's so the table can be put together at all.
Has paid to be there
Twenty-five dollars is not much, and it is enough that nobody turns up out of idle curiosity.
That's the bar, and it's the same for everybody. What I can't promise is that you'll like them — nobody can, which is why you get four of them and the last word.
The evening
- 6.55
You walk in and say heykwak. The table is booked in that name.
- 7.00
Eight of you, four a side. There are a few questions on the table, so nobody has to be the one who starts.
- 9.00
It ends. Whatever anybody does after that is their own evening, not something I arrange.
- The next morning
You name whoever you'd see again — one, several, or nobody at all.
- That evening
Where you both said each other, I send you both a number. Where you didn't, nothing arrives and nobody is told.
Why this shape
Four chances, not one
You're never stuck across from one stranger with two hours to fill. If it isn't landing with one person, the conversation is already somewhere else.
Nothing to browse
There are no profiles, so there is nothing for a colleague to scroll past at work. Six hours before, you see the age and job of the four opposite. Never a name, never a photo.
You are never told no
If it's mutual, both of you hear. If it isn't, nothing arrives — there is no rejection to receive, and no way to tell who chose whom.
Nobody can find you first
The bar lands six hours beforehand, so it can't be passed around in advance, and your number stays yours until you've both said otherwise.
How you can come
On your own
You'll be seated with others who came the same way, or beside a pair — never as the only stranger inside somebody else's group.
With a friend
Bring one, or two — single ones, since everybody at the table is. You each put your own name down and pay for your own seat, so nobody's place waits on anybody else.
Three friends is the one shape that doesn't work: it fills three of the four seats on your side and leaves the fourth person as the only outsider all night. Come as two, or as four.
Putting your name down
- 01
Put your name down
Which of the evenings on offer you can make — the next five weeks are up at any one time. Tick as many as work; the more you tick, the sooner you get seated.
- 02
Profile, then pay
Profile first, always. Paying is what holds your place, and a pass covers several nights at a lower price. PayNow, checked by hand.
- 03
Verify your work or school email
A code, and you're done. It's what lets everybody else at the table relax, and it's the reason you can relax about them.
- 04
I put the table together
Eight people who can make the same evening, seated so nobody sits with someone they've met here before. If I can't seat you, the night goes back on your pass.
- 05
Confirm, then turn up
A tap the day before. Six hours out, the bar lands — along with the age and job of the four people opposite.
Four a side, or three
I aim for four and four. If somebody drops out on the day it runs as three and four, which is a perfectly good evening. Below three on a side I don't run it, and your night goes back on your pass — no refund to chase, nothing to arrange.
What this isn't
It isn't dinner with strangers and it isn't networking. Everyone at the table is single and knows why they're there. If you're after new friends there are better places to spend a Wednesday — I'd rather say so here than have you work it out at the table.
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