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The Recipe For Love - New "8minuteDating" Service on Menu at Quincy Restaurant
Living on the South Shore (Community Newspapers)
By Seth Jacobson

Forget about bars, the personal pages, and all those names in your little black book. The latest love craze known as 8-Minute Dating is on its way to the South Shore.

Starting Sept. 11, the X&O European Trattoria in Quincy will host the first 8-Minute Dating session in the area. The event will be held every other Tuesday at the restaurant through November 20.

"It's a big craze right now across the country," said Rebecca Hancock, a spokesperson for the X&O Trattoria. "Basically, 8-Minute Dating provides a good alternative for people who don't feel like dealing with the club scene." Hancock said people can sign up for the program at the web site www.8minutedating.com.

"After you sign up, show up at the event on Sept. 11, and the MC will explain what's going on," Hancock said. She explained those who sign up will be given three different kinds of card on their arrival - a card with a code on it, a table, assignment card, and an 8-Minute Dating card to make notes or jot down names. They will also be given a list of eight different potential love interests.

During the course of the evening, each person involved in the program will have the opportunity to sit at different tables with those eight prospective "dates." People will be times during their conversations. They will have only eight minutes to talk before having to move on to the next table and the next person.

Hancock said when all is said and done, each participant will have met a good number of people in a single night, but then the people at 8-Minute Dating take care of the next step - playing matchmaker over the Internet.

After they have taken part in the event, participants can actually enter the code number of the person they are interested in, and find out if that individual shows mutual interest or not.

"If someone feels the same way about another person, the people at 8-Minute Dating will set up an official date," Hancock said. "It's a really neat program, and it's not some meat-market atmosphere. It's safe and civilized. People are welcome to either come by themselves or in groups."

8-Minute Dating has already been popular in cities like New York and Seattle, and it has also been written up in BOSTON magazine. In addition, it has been featured on popular television shows like "Frasier" and HBO's "Sex and the City."

8-Minute Dating is also a good alternative to not only the club scene, but to the singles pages and other dating services which tend to cost hundreds of dollars.

"With other dating services, people have to watch a lot of videos, pay a lot of money, and do a lot of waiting," Whitten-Bunszel said. She added with 8-Minute Dating it only costs $33.88 to take part.

"There's so much potential in meeting someone you click with," said Hancock. "There's nothing to lose and everything to gain." She added at each 8-Minute Dating session, there will be an average of 80 people in attendance, half males and half females. Typically, the service is for 25-35 year olds, but Hancock said it would be nice to have certain events for older people as well.

Tom Jaffe, the CEO and founder of 8-Minute Dating, says he's been very satisfied with the success of the program.

"People just seem to have a great time with it," he said. "We're starting to roll it out into cities everywhere. I think one of the reasons people like it so much is because there's really no pretense or bravado involved."

Manos Gregoriades and his mother Mary, owners of the X&O Trattoria, are also very enthusiastic about hosting the event. Manos will actually be acting as emcee for all of the different sessions.

"We think it's going to be a fun-loving atmosphere,' Manos said. "At the same time, we're excited to expand it to people who wouldn't normally come to the restaurant. On the South Shore, there's not many ways to meet a lot of people. Usually, people end up having to go to Boston."

"It's very new to me, Mary said. "It's kind of like musical chairs, but it's musical dating instead." return to top

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