15 Things I Learnt From 15 Dates in 15 Hours

I set out to go on 20 dates in 20 hours with 20 women for a presentation for PechaKucha. You can go here for more details. I ended up only going on 15 dates, but got some great insights.

This is what I've learnt:

1. 30 minutes is a very short time. And 15 hours is a long time.

2. Girls are more keen for dates if they're only 30 minutes long. I think its something to do with the possible pyscho-weirdness of blind dates.

3. There are a lot of nice ladies in Cape Town. Either I have just been closed-minded or uber-picky or something, cause I imagine some of the ladies should really have quite a few guys who are keen on them.

4. It's possible to get on well with most women. This might be easier for me as I have 5 sisters, but I imagine most males with fair amounts of EQ being able to get on with the friendly ladies I met.

5. The Waterfront is expensive.

6. The 'London Eye' is pretty cool with rad views of Cape Town. It also has air-con which is great on a hot day. Their staff are friendly, despite the part where I tried to get my sponsored tickets and the date had to awkwardly stand there while I fought to not have to pay R160. Not the most gallant part of the day.

7. Ladies will automatically think you're odd if you're going on 15 dates in one day. "Normal people don't do this sort of thing" was mentioned a few times.

8. Most women like sitting down and talking on dates. Not, for example, going to play putt-putt.

9. It gets easier and easier to be entertaining and charismatic the further into the dates you go. During my morning dates I was a bit introverted and self-conscious, but as the day progressed the proverbial tortoise came out of his shell.

10. Ending dates can be awkward, because you have to say "sorry, this conversation is fun, but I do have to go meet another lady."

11. Don't rant about your own weird ideas about child-bearing and theology. Most girls will find that a bit off-putting. Talk instead about all the children you have single-handedly imparted lifelong wisdom to. If you don't have any heart-warming stories from your life, make them up. Jokes. Rather go and do heart-warming things.

12. Telling your life story 15 times can be a bit boring. Yes I have 5 sisters and a brother, and grew up in Cape Town, and went to High School in Joburg and varsity in Stellenbosch. Obviously this is a necessary part of the conversation though, so I just had to suck it up.

13. Some ladies really want the other ladies to be loonies. A common question I got was "were there any mad girls?" And truthfully I can say they all were very sane and very nice.

14. I am bad at remembering to take pictures while on the date. This is probably a good thing cause it means I was focussed on the dates themselves, but forgot to get pictures for 2 of the dates and had a couple of random quick photos before they left and I rushed onto the next date.

15. It's tough to remember specific conversations when you had similar conversations with 15 girls. This is probably the saddest point. The day feels like a bit of a mash-up of conversations and I'm trying to remember exactly who I spoke to about what. I did take notes, but they weren't too comprehensive.

All in all I can say that I had an epic day meeting a lot of very nice ladies. Special thanks to all those who organised dates for me and shared my blog post and got involved. Some people who I have never met, like Emily Vermeulen for example, were great champions of the Date Challenge, despite having no idea if I was a crazy or not. Also thanks to the Cape Wheel for sponsoring a date, cause that was cool of them.