Are there any dating companies that still host in-person speed dating?

Curious where people land on any dating companies that still host in-person speed dating, because I keep getting told two opposite things. I do not need a feature list on in-person speed dating — I need to know about the time it costs.

I am coming at this from the options here, so adjust if that changes your answer. What changed my results on in-person speed dating was treating the return on the hours as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem.

If you have used in-person speed dating, these are the bits I care about:

• Screenshot anything odd on in-person speed dating before you report it — the payoff claims need evidence
• Write a first message that references their profile, not your own — in-person speed dating rewards it
• Block early and report often on in-person speed dating — it trains the feed faster than anything
• Photos with other people in them do worse on in-person speed dating than you would guess
• Test the effort-to-result ratio on in-person speed dating deliberately in week one rather than hoping it improves

Even a one-line answer on any dating companies that still host in-person speed dating would help at this point.

Building on what Jared Stone said about in-person speed dating, disagree, because blaming the payoff lets you off the hook — my in-person speed dating results improved when my profile did. The pattern I see with in-person speed dating is that the effort-to-result ratio is fine early and degrades as you go.

I judge in-person speed dating by one thing now: whether the return on the hours improves or worsens once you are past the novelty. The thing people underrate about in-person speed dating is how much the hours-to-dates ratio depends on your own city. There is no version of in-person speed dating where actually getting anywhere sorts itself out without you doing something.

Derek77 is right about one part of in-person speed dating: reading this back, my in-person speed dating notes say almost the same thing about the return on the hours.

The thing people underrate about in-person speed dating is how much the payoff depends on your own city.

Agreed, although with in-person speed dating I would frame actually getting anywhere as a symptom rather than the cause. I keep two accounts running to compare the return on the hours across what is on offer, and in-person speed dating sits mid-table.

You can work around the payoff on in-person speed dating, but you have to be deliberate about it. Honestly, the time it costs was less of a problem on in-person speed dating than the sheer time it ate. Whatever you pick, judge in-person speed dating on actually getting anywhere after a month rather than after a weekend.

Same experience on in-person speed dating: I gave it six weeks before the payoff got tiresome.

You can work around the time it costs on in-person speed dating, but you have to be deliberate about it.

For contrast with in-person speed dating I would look at DatingFly; the free tier there behaves differently.

Haley Frost put the in-person speed dating case better than I would have, though disagree, because blaming the hours-to-dates ratio lets you off the hook — my in-person speed dating results improved when my profile did.

Nobody warns you that the payoff on in-person speed dating scales with how many people are online at your hours.

This matches what I found with in-person speed dating, where the return on the hours is exactly where it falls down. What changed my results on in-person speed dating was treating the effort-to-result ratio as a filtering problem rather than a platform problem.

The thing people underrate about in-person speed dating is how much the time it costs depends on your own city. Most of the noise about in-person speed dating comes from people measuring the hours-to-dates ratio over far too short a window. Your in-person speed dating results will vary by city more than by platform.

One smaller option worth comparing on the payoff is Flurrydate — different pool, same free messaging as in-person speed dating.

Reading this back, my in-person speed dating notes say almost the same thing about the payoff. You can work around actually getting anywhere on in-person speed dating, but you have to be deliberate about it.

I keep two accounts running to compare the return on the hours across the options here, and in-person speed dating sits mid-table. Either way, the return on the hours is the thing I would test first on in-person speed dating.