Last Wednesday I attended a Silent Dating Event. If you are like me last week, you probably have no clue what the hell that is supposed to be. I was like – silent dating? So what, I’m not supposed to talk?! Isn’t dating about talking in order to get to know each other? “Heyyyyy, how are you?“ – “Good. How are you?“ … ensuing a smalltalk in which everyone’s basically checking boxes. Like: good job- check, right age – check, good sense of humor – check, and so on. You know how it is. But Silent Dating isn’t about checking boxes. At least not until the very end. 

I had only registered the night before the event took place. Helena, one of the founders of “Slow Dating Events Vienna“, informed me that the Silent Dating evening (20-39 years) had been sold out for an entire month, but I actually was lucky and could fill in for a person who had canceled on short notice. Yay! 

The Facebook description of the event basically said that it was like a counterdraft to Tinder hookups, that you would get to know people nonverbally first, and that you would engage in dynamic exercises and activities. Hm. 

So yeah, I had mentally prepared for some awkward moments when I entered Monami bar at 7.10pm. There was already a queue downstairs and I figured there were much more people than I had expected (46 in total, if I’m correct). Helena and Till, the two moderators of the evening, were greeting their guests, handing out matching sheets, and assigning numbers. 

While I was waiting for my number, I started chatting with the girl in front of me. I asked her if she was expecting anything profound from this evening or if she was doing it just for fun. “No, just for fun.“ But she added that one of her best friends got to know her current boyfriend on a silent dating event and apparently they’ve been dating for 7 months now. I was impressed. The anti-Tinder-formula seems to work. 

It was interesting to observe the crowd. To be quite frank, there were not many dudes that I would have (immediately) right-swiped on Tinder, but hey, #instawow is overused anyway. 

I pinned my number 23 on my shirt, put the matching sheet in my bag, got myself a beer and proceeded. I chatted with a handful of people (everyone was supernice and open-minded, from what I got first-glimpse), before Helena and Till officially started the event at 7.30. They said a couple of introductory words about the event as such, established the no-talking-rule, spoke about comfort zones and told us to just go with the flow and see what happens. 

The first couple of exercises encompassed walking around in the room and becoming sort of familiar with who was here. After this „warm-up“, the activities started to become more challenging. Mirroring exercises, in essence. We had to find a partner, each one of us got a cloth and then we took turns in using this cloth in a way that had to be mirrored by the other one. We switched partners a couple of times and repeated this exercise – first with the cloths, then with the use of our hands. It sounds silly, but this was actually a really fun exercise. You could already see if someone’s creative or not, if someone’s got a good sense of humor and also if you can relate to each other.

In the last exercise before the break one partner was blindfolded and established as “the tree“, while the other one was performing finger movements on their back, simulating “a woodpecker“, “hail“, “rain“, “snow“, “blooming flowers“, “a squirrel“ (did I forget anything? Don’t know). Anyways, we did this exercise only twice. Once you were the giving, once the receiving part, but you would do it with two different partners. And I have to say, it was kind of an intimate moment. I mean, everyone was fully dressed, obviously, but it’s like giving a massage to someone you don’t know. You create a certain connection. And maybe you don’t want to have that with everyone, you know what I mean? I mean, I was lucky, because the guy who I was “the tree“ with was the one I liked best. And he already won me over with his simulation of the squirrel. It was hilarious. From the way he moved his fingers across my back and my arms, I could sense he really knew something about squirrels. Lol. It was a shy but still very lively squirrel. Very extra. Loved it!

In the 20-minutes break that followed, most of the people went upstairs to fetch some drinks (me included) and while everyone seemed to be happy to be able to talk in actual words, you could sense that these exercises had really moved things further. It was as if you knew the people on a different level than if you had only spoken to them. 

Part two of the silent dating evening was the famous eye-gazing round. You would sit opposite each other and look the other person in their eyes for one minute straight. Obviously no talking. Then you would move on to the next person. And it was really interesting. And intense. Because honestly, how often do you look someone in their eyes for such a long time without averting your gaze or without talking. And you could see how some people really struggled with it. They would start giggling or showing some other sign of insecurity. It was really revealing. And I mean, you could feel who you „clicked with“ and who just left you cold. 

After this last exercise, everyone filled out their matching sheet, which means, you could tick off the numbers of the persons you liked to see again. Helena and Till then collected the sheets and informed us that we would get our “matches“ within the next 48 hours via email. Longer than Amazon Prime takes to deliver my ordered books. An almost oldschool-ish time period. But it’s cool. People start to get excited if you make them wait for things. 

Anyways, this was the official part. 

What followed was the inofficial part, which involved a lot of talking, drinking and good laughs. I was sitting together with about 6 silent daters and it was hilarious. I definitely felt as if I had known them for longer than just an evening. And we actually stayed until the Monami kicked us out. 

So yeah, this was my silent dating experience. Honestly you guys, I can totally recommend doing that, at least for once. You know, I’m a big supporter of trying out new things, because it always makes you learn something – about life, about others, about yourself. There’s an undeniable element of realness in non-verbal communication – you can’t hide behind words, and man, you have no idea how often I do that haha. 

I shall add that there are Silent Dating events for various age groups, for same-sex women/men and also for single mums/dads. Slow Dating Events Vienna also organize other dating events, like wine tastings or play & date evenings.