Well... I speed-dated! And I survived. I feel like I should have a t-shirt to prove it or something.

So here's how it works (in case you don't know... which I didn't until a couple of hours ago). You arrive at R-Bar to be greeted by a THT angel, given a red rose and offered chocolates! You then get given a grid of numbers and letters to tell you which table you're supposed to go to at what point in the evening. Someone then starts blowing a (pink) whistle at three minute intervals - which either feels like 30 second intervals if you meet someone you're enjoying chatting to, or 10 minutes if the conversation dies at "what's your favourite colour". Mine mostly felt like 30 to 45 second intervals, I'm pleased to report!

And the result is a sheet of names and numbers and notes to remind yourself of who each person is. I ended up leaving 3 ticks in the 'see again' column where I thought it might be cool to have another drink with them in not such pressured circumstances in case there was a spark there.

The last piece of the jigsaw is that following the event we all now wait for an email telling us if any of our selected potential dates also ticked us and would therefore like to meet up again.

I took some pictures, I drank some wine and I had a good laugh meeting lots of new people. It is what anyone would consider a good night out! For some reason, though, I've got an unsettling guilt about it all...

Why did I choose not to tick some of those people when we had such a good laugh in our three minute speed-date? What if someone had ticked me and ends up feeling snubbed that I didn't return the interest? Did everyone tick the same 3 people? I kind of wish I hadn't ticked anyone now... at least then there'll be no fear of rejection in not receiving any matches in the morning...!

Would I do it again? Definitely!

The night was run extremely professionally by a lovely bunch of people. Big big cheers to Darren at Brighton Banter and to the THT volunteers for giving their time up freely to make it all happen. The promotion of both this and tomorrow's lesbian speed-dating night was sponsored by a small Pride grant, and every penny of the ticket price goes directly to THT. This gay men's night alone raised £170! Fabulous!