Personal Life Media

Transcript

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[musical interlude]

Alissa Kriteman: Welcome to “Just for Women: Dating, Relationships, and Sex.” I'm your host, Alissa Kriteman. This show is dedicated to bringing you the most insightful information available today to help you reach all your love, sex, intimacy, and relationship goals.

Today on the show, I'm very happy to welcome Scott Swanson who is the host of monthly speed dating events and a course leader with Authentic World here in San Francisco. Today on the show, we're going to discuss speed dating as it enters into its first decade here in our modern dating world. A lot has changed and evolved and we're going to talk to Scott about that today. We're also going to talk about some of the issues with speed dating as well as their success stories. Then we're going to get the inside track from Scott on men--What they want? What they're suffering about?--from his deep experienced course reading with Authentic World.

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Scott Swanson: If a couple of leaning men, if she's sort of brushing her hair or he's sort of on his elbows and smiling a lot, that’s a good sign. There are villages actually in South America where the two villages will come together and the women will walk around in a circle and the men will walk around in a larger circle around them and they will actually rotate. The women that catch the eye of the men, they will start to walk together and they will talk together. It was kind of really the first sort of the rural, tribal version of speed dating.

Women are incredibly intuitive, they know the difference. I would offer that if something doesn’t feel like him, if he's putting on something that’s just like, “Who is this guy?” It feels like an act, you know what, it probably is.

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Alissa Kriteman: So let me say a few words about Scott Swanson. He is the VP and General Manager of Glam Media which is an Internet advertising site. He runs a personal development review site called GrowthPop. He's a course leader with Authentic World who’s committed to providing authentic flourishing relationships for men and women. He's the host of “8-minute Dating”, it creates dates in one fun night. I love that! He's also the co-creator of a course called “The Six-Week”, a personal empowerment program for men and women.

So Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Swanson: It's great to be here, Alissa. Thanks.

Alissa Kriteman: I don’t know where you find time to date with all that’s going on. Are you dating?

Scott Swanson: I'm dating right now, yes, but there was definitely a period in time now where there was a few too many things going on few too many websites, few too many 8-minute dating, speed dating events that I wasn't able to work at it, but I'm out of the woods now.

Alissa Kriteman: Now, if you were at a speed dating event, as the host, is it taboo to talk to any of the women for your own personal connection?

Scott Swanson: For me, the customers come first for sure, but I have created connections with women that I've met as a host of my events. Certainly, for friends that have come by and visited and stuff like that, it's really at the end of the day, it's a big party of people and all of them are single and there's some freedom in that. Yes, for sure.

Alissa Kriteman: So tell me, what are the people like who come to these speed dating events?

Scott Swanson: Well, they really ranged from all kinds of walks of life. We sort of identify our events as being for single professionals. So people that are professionals in some kind of an industry and that's a pretty broad term, but just by saying that, it draws people who have a strong career going and generally, the way that people look as they dress up professionally when they show up at the events. They look their best and they look sharp and hot.

Alissa Kriteman: Like a real date. Have you ever seen an interaction go really badly?

Scott Swanson: I haven’t seen any interactions in our events that, you know, this is a terrible match but you can tell from body language throughout the event. I get the luxury of sitting back in the sidelines and I get to watch all the couples interact and you can tell from body language which couples are really hit it off and which ones aren’t. The typical things where if a couple leaning in, if she's sort of brushing her hair, if he's sort of on his elbows and smiling a lot, lots of eye contact and warmth. That’s a good sign. If people have their arms folded and they're leaning away from each other and not really engaging or smiling, you know that’s not a great match.

Alissa Kriteman: So if I was on a speed-date, how could I tell that the man across from me was interested in me?

Scott Swanson: Well, I think some of those tell-tale signs I just mentioned sort of leaning forward, lots of eye contact, lots of smiling while he's talking. Then I would say any sort of engaging conversation. So if he's pulling information out about you, men tend to interview their women especially when they first meet them to find out as much as they can about them to see if it's going to be a good match and I think women do the same thing. But certainly for a man, that’s definitely a good tell-tale sign.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, but if a guy’s got his arms on the table and he's looking into my eyes, I could see how he would do that to every woman--maybe--just to kind of get into the flow. I mean, there he is, he's speed dating. How do we know that guys aren’t pulling the wall over our eyes or they just want to sleep with us? Maybe they do and that’s OK, but how do we know?

Scott Swanson: Well, I'd say if he really likes you, most men--and I'd say even the most confident man--they’ll probably be a little bit nervous. So there’ll probably be some sign for them, that they might be fidgeting and they might stumble over their words and even when they sit down at the table across from you, they might sort of trip. So any elements that look like they're nervous, that means they're really trying to put their best foot forward. They're probably pretty interested in you.

Alissa Kriteman: OK, that’s good. Versus the kind of slick--because I've seen this, the slick kind of guy leaning over, looking into my eyes, but I could feel something’s not quite right. It's probably that element of vulnerability, where like you said, nervousness would show up as he was really being authentic.

Scott Swanson: Yes. I think that’s true. He maybe trying his darndest to be Mr. Slickster, but he’s probably got so much attention on how his outward appearance is showing up that he's probably screwing up in some ways. You can definitely pick up on that as a woman, I think.

Alissa Kriteman: OK, cool. So how do you come to--there's different segments? There's 3-minute speed dating, there's 8-minute, 10-minute. How do you figure out what the length of time is?

Scott Swanson: We've done numerous studies on speed dating and found that eight minutes is the perfect--no, I was just kidding--eight minutes is the perfect amount of time. There are some groups, there's a group called “hurry date” and it's like 3-minute dating. There's a bunch of organizations like this and they all have different time, some of them have something like nine minutes.

I do think that eight minutes is perfect for relationships, three minutes is good for a superficial, quick first impression, get a feel for if you're attracted to the person. I think a couple of minutes is enough time to find out if you're attracted to them physically. But to really get a feel for who they are, you can really do it in eight minutes.

I'm reading a book, it's actually sitting on your bookshelf here, “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell, and he talks about “thin slicing”. How you can actually use your intuition and feel everything you need to know about a situation using that subconscious in a certain amount of time, I think you can do that with people. I think you can do that with mates.

I don’t think three minutes is enough time, I think eight minutes actually is enough time. I do hear from my participants for the people that they really like, it goes by so fast. I can hear half, like when I say, “OK, everybody, it's time to end our first date, eight minutes is up”, half of the people will groan and go, “That’s not enough time?” And the other half of people jump up and go, “OK, that was the longest eight minutes I've ever spent.”

Alissa Kriteman: Honestly, yes, also I'm reading a book called “The Female Brain” where Louann Brizendine said that it's seconds because we're so biologically wired that when we see someone that activates attraction in us, we're immediately flooded with chemicals and it takes 30 seconds. So yes, but I do think that a longer length of time especially as developed humans to let all those chemicals settle down and really connect.

Scott Swanson: Really, that’s a great point. What I'll encourage my participants to do because people--by default--they’ll sit and they’ll say, “Where are you from? What do you do for work? How many brothers and sisters do you have?” You know, that kind of thing. It really puts a lot of pressure on people and I think it creates this dynamic where people can't feel into each other.

So I encourage people to talk about the things that they're passionate about, really think about the things that really light them up. When they do that, their best selves come out and the attention stops being on them so much. They can relax and maybe those chemicals aren’t so charging with them that it becomes distracting they can feel really whether the other person is somebody that they might be interested in. It's a best foot forward when they talk about what they're passionate about.

Alissa Kriteman: So do you coach people? I mean, do you have conversations before they date?

Scott Swanson: I do a big introductory, “Hey, everybody, I know you're all nervous” and half of the people, probably three-quarters of the people that come to each of my events who have never done it before, so it's their first time. I'll do an introductory thing and I will coach people and I'll even give them a few little pointers for things to talk about. I also encourage people to use it as an opportunity even if they don’t meet the match of their whole life at this event.

So Tuesday night, it's probably a night where they wouldn’t give an opportunity to meet eight total strangers and maybe even more people. We have an intermission where people can meet some of the other folks that they haven’t had an 8-minute date with, and it's really an opportunity for some to make new friends. Some people will make business contacts in some of the events.

Alissa Kriteman: That’s nice, it kind of takes the pressure off. Do you think that the number of so many new people at speed dating is because people come check it out and they don’t come back or the people you speed dating as a long term, viable way to meet their possible mate?

Scott Swanson: I think it's both. I think people--I do get a lot of return of visitors, folks that didn’t meet their perfect match six months ago will come back. They had a good experience, they come back and do it again. I think some people show up and they want to give it a try and it's not 100% for them. I think we get both.

Alissa Kriteman: So, what kind of people come to speed dating events overall?

Scott Swanson: Overall, like I said, you know they're more professional folks. My experience we're really unique in that in the San Francisco Bay Area, men fill up my events. I'm the only place I get emails from all the other “8-minute Dating” hosts all over the world and say, “How do you get so many men to come to your events?” I think because of the dynamic here in the Bay Area where we've got a lot of men working in technology in Silicon Valley and not a lot of women actually live down there.

So they all come out to the city and they're looking for love and they come to speed dating events. So we do get a lot of men, they're professionals in the technology industry. We get women--actually we get a lot of nurses, believe it or not, because I think they work so hard, it's hard for them to have a social life. So we get a lot of nurses on the women side that come to the events, but we get a broad range of people.

Alissa Kriteman: It totally makes sense. I have to laugh because I was searching during my research about speed dating and there's a definition about speed dating on Wikipedia. I think that when that happens, it has arrived and so it's really funny. Speed dating is a formalized match making process or dating system whose purpose is to encourage people to meet a large number of new people. Its origins are actually Jewish, a Rabbi actually set this up according to Wikipedia, and the first speed dating event took place in 1998 in Beverly Hills.

So how has speed dating evolved in your perspective in the last 10 years?

Scott Swanson: You know, you can even go back further. I think he was the first person to really institutionalize it in the Western world. But there are villages actually in South America where the two villages will come together and the women will walk around in a circle and the men will walk around in a larger circle around them and they will actually rotate. The women that catch the eye of the men, they will start to walk together and they will talk together. It was really the first rural, tribal version of speed dating. Do this sort of thing and I really love that image on my mind for some of the roots of what this whole thing is.

Shortly after the Rbabi started the speed dating from [xx] in LA, now there are a number of companies that launched and thought it was a great thing. Our company even got Katie Couric on the “Today Show” to do some speed dating. After that happened, it was on “Sex in the City”--actually one of the characters in “Sex in the City” goes on speed dating--there was a huge spike and it became very trendy. It was kind of a sign of the dot-com time things are changing, people are doing everything fast. It's all faster, faster, faster; and speed dating is just a phenomenal. It's very trendy at that time so we had a big spike of people.

There was one event that I had, there was probably 95 people at the event. It was huge and everybody wanted to try it. Then after that, we went through a little downward trend and people were like, “Oh, it's not the trend anymore.” Now it's slowly sort of built up again and I believe it's really mainstream for people now.

We get all of our customers through Google, people typing in speed dating San Francisco. So most of our people are actually looking for and it's in their minds, and it's part of the mainstream culture. I think the same thing has happen with online dating as well where it's kind of weird, and French, it was kind of hot. Now, it's mainstream people accepted as something that they do to meet other people.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, I think what I like about speed dating is you can actually meet the person in person and it's very difficult with online dating to really get a gauge of who you're dealing with. I know that when I was doing online dating, getting who the person is online and then meeting them in person, there's such a gap there. So I could see where speed dating, it would become more of a mainstream comfortable thing because there's a person. Again, you see them with your eyes, you feel them, the bodies starts emitting chemicals, things you can't even control start happening. It's a much safer environment, you meet a ton of people. So yes, I can see where it can be really successful.

Scott Swanson: Yes. You can look at a resume and that actually--Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in “Blink” as well. People actually don’t know what they want in a partner. They think they do, they think they could put together resume, “This person needs to be this tall and they need to be affiliated with this spirituality and they need to have this kind of a career.” But in reality, you never really know until you actually meet that person face to face and you can feel really the difference between where the attraction is and how they make you feel, and you can't really replace that.

One phenomenon that I think is interesting though is there's a marriage occurring between speed dating and online dating where people are doing online video webcasting so you can meet people in a speed dating type of environment online. So you can get a screen filled with faces and you get a couple of minutes to speak to that person over your computer. I think that could be almost as good as in person, I think that’s really an interesting business.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, I saw that. I'm actually going to interview someone from the online video dating world because that is such a modern thing to be able to meet someone on the Internet like that. So yes, I'm fascinated by it, I can't even believe it, so I'm glad you said that.

We're going to take a break to support our sponsors. I'm your host, Alissa Kriteman. You're listening to “Just for Women: Dating, Relationships, and Sex”. I'm speaking with Scott Swanson, host of “8-minute Dating” and we’ll be right back.

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Alissa Kriteman: We're back. I'm Alissa Kriteman, your host of “Just for Women: Dating, Relationships, and Sex”. We're speaking with Scott Swanson, the host of “8-minute Dating” talking about how speed dating has evolved over the past 10 years, how you can tell if a man’s really interested in you or not? Now, we want to talk to Scott about men.

He is a course leader with an amazing organization here in San Francisco, one that I'm affiliated with as well called “Authentic World”. This company is completely committed to helping men and women have the life they want to live in their relationships. They just deeply, deeply desire to have and Scott is deep inside into men. What's going on with them? What do they suffer about? What do they look for in women?” So I wanted to get his deep perspective on that today. So Scott, how has your connection with speed dating and that whole world help you to understand what men really are looking for and why in a relationship?

Scott Swanson: Well, I'd say that this whole journey started with my own experience as a young single man living in San Francisco and feeling challenged, really challenged with the dating scene. I'm like, “How do I find the great woman? How do I engage with her?” I'm really concerned honestly with this way that people do engage with each other today. I think it's really hard for people to meet each other. I think when they do, it's hard for them to really be associated with traditions or a way to fall into a relationship and begin dating and having fun. Obviously, it's not a big enough problem. There's plenty of people out there that are dating and getting into great relationships. But it was a trend that concerned me from the beginning because I was concerning for myself.

I remember speaking to my Mom on the phone, and I said, “Mom, you know what, I live in San Francisco. Lots of great women here, I got it going on. I've got a great career” and all that stuff. She's like, “Oh, I just saw this speed dating thing on TV, you should check it out.” So I continued to be interested in a man-woman dynamics. How they get introduced to each other and then how that mating dance placed out.

Like the man traditionally has been the initiator and I think there's really been a trend for men where it's become much more difficult for them to figure out what is enough of an initiator and enough of a strong man that would approach a woman, speak to her, ask her out on a date. What's too much? What's getting into her space and making her feel uncomfortable? I think for men, that’s a tough line that we have to walk.

Some of the education that’s out there certainly with the Authentic Man Program with the Authentic World group really intends to let men out of their shell in a way that’s also really respectful and is an honor in women.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, I'm good that you said that because I've been trying to connect with some people from the Seduction community to have them talk to us about that whole scene. Because it is, it's a function of what's going on in society today between women and men that men are starting to study how to approach, connect with, and have a relationship with women. I think that’s up right now because there's a whole gamut of information out there with the game and Neil Strauss’ book teaching men how to--it's almost like a deception that’s how it occurs to me. That’s why I want to talk more about that.

So it sounds like what you're doing is teaching men how to approach women from an authentic place versus games. I hear there's this whole lingo about techniques and moves just to connect with the woman. What is that all about?

Scott Swanson: Well, I think, the way even though a community, and I've taken some courses. I took a course called “Pick Up 101” and learn that was sort of the first thing I've ever learn. Inside of that community, they’ve got Pick Up 101 and the seduction stuff that you mentioned, they consider that outer game. How you're acting. You're close, how you approach or talk to a woman, and then the things that you talk about, things that you know that women find interesting. Just like women, have their cosmopolitan that says, “What does he want in bed? Figure out your man.” This was in my mind, the men’s version of that. We've got magazines, too, but it's not like, “Women really want to hear about funny stories and they want to hear about your friends” and stuff like that.

Ideally, we would know that already but some men don’t really know that. So they’ve got that authentic work is really ideally working about inner game, and that’s how the Seduction community calls, even that course, it's all about inner games. It's really about lining yourself up as an authentic human being. Being yourself and letting that shine out in the world and letting that attract women and having that be what is it that’s attracting women.

I think the part that doesn’t feel good about the outer game seduction world is that you're putting somebody else on. You're acting like alpha male confident guy, and that’s really not who you are. It might work for some people, some people might be seduced by that air of confidence, but I don’t think at the end of the day it leads to relationships that either party is really looking for.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, well, that’s some amazing information and I think it's really important for women to understand that there is all of that outer game and that might be attractive and flashy and what catches their eye in the beginning but really tapping into, “Is this man on purpose? Does this man really know who he is? Can he talk with me? Is he connecting with me? Is he just asking me these questions because he read them in a book somewhere or is he really interested in me?”

So again, my show is for women, so what would you say to women who are meeting guys out there, say not necessarily in the speed dating arena--because I think that takes a little bit of pressure off--but out there in the dating world, maybe at a bar or a club. What are some of the clues that a guy’s not just trying to pick her up and he's actually getting to know here? Maybe not being in a bar?

Scott Swanson: That might be, that might be, you'll never know. Bars are great meeting places for people even though there's a stigma associated with them. But I'd say women are incredibly intuitive. They know the difference, and I would offer that if something doesn’t feel like him, if he's putting on something that’s just like, “Who is this guy?” If it feels like an act, it probably is. The best way to be in service to that situation because he actually might be a great guy. He might be a guy that you actually want to meet, and he just thinks that he has to be that way to get your attention. Call it out right there at the moment and just be like, “You do not feel like who I think you are. But I feel like you're putting an act right now.” It may sound really confronting but us men love good feedback like that from women, to really wake us up out of our haze, acting in a certain way would be a huge contribution and you might get an opportunity to get to know a really great guy and just was a little bit mislead.

Alissa Kriteman: Wow! That is amazing. Thank you. So women, we are being encourage by this man who’s deeply immersed in the dating scene and men-women dynamics to say call it out, don’t be afraid to express yourself because I think women, we're culturally conditioned to withhold, repress, and not be our authentic selves as well. So, just say how it feels for us, not in a mean way necessarily but just really authentic about, “Wow. This really doesn’t feel good. What you're saying feels superficial or fake.” So we can say that?

Scott Swanson: Absolutely. There is a difference, as you've said, doing it and not being mean. Have compassion for this other human being and, of course, who’s really just looking for love and trying to do the best job he can and might have been a little bit mislead with what it takes to really get in touch with the women. He's practicing, he's out there and he's being outgoing and he's trying to legitimately get to know you as a human being.

So bring some compassion to the conversation for sure. It's tough being a guy and being out there and putting your neck on the line and saying, “Hey, who are you? What's going on?” Sometimes, we need our little bag of tricks and have a few little words in our little back pocket to say, “Hey, I was hanging out with my friends the other day” this and that because we, too, get nervous. Especially, we get nervous if we think we're going to get swatted. So anytime you engage a man, for all you women, bring your compassion but some of us really do need to be shaken awake and brought to the present.

Allison Kriteman: This is so endearing. When you said swatted, I mean, it's beautiful. Guys, I love this conversation because you're really giving us the inside track, you're just doing the best you can with what you know which is why all that seduction stuff came up. You've really want to know us and connect with us and not get swatted. So what is that? I know I've swatted men, so talk to me about that. What do you do? So for women swatting you, how would you play with her?

Scott Swanson: Well, usually, just like what I encourage you, women to do, great thing is to call it out in the moment, just be like, “Aw! Oh, my God! You really just kind of shot me down, didn’t you? What's going on?” I bet you have a lot of guys that come up to you all the time and you probably got your defenses up and I'm not like those guys. I'm sort of realized that there's something else that play there. For anybody who swats another person, that probably need immediate reaction.

There's probably something that I'm not bringing to the situation that might need to be there. That might be the case. Also, anything that you can call at the moment, somebody might just be having a bad day. One time I approached two women who were having dinner. They’d look over at me and stuff like that and I felt like they were inviting. I walked over and I spoke with them and I could kind of feel that they didn’t want to talk. They were sort of confused because they’d looked over, but it turned out that they'd been just looking over in that direction and that they wanted the conversation between just them. They were very respectful and it was great and it left me feeling good and I could walk away, I'm not feel swatted.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, exactly. I love that, I love that because I know I've done that myself and it's not necessarily coming from a place of “Don’t talk to me”. But, yes, I might be overwhelmed by something or I am having a bad day and it's not necessarily a huge shot down of that person. If a man can navigate through that, and call it out, “Well, sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” Usually, that’s disarming enough. So for us to bring that respect of one another to the table in this whole dating scene and really just get down to what's real, it seems to work a lot better than some of these put on game stuff.

Scott Swanson: I agree with that, I agree with that. The other element I think for men is that they associate a lot of their worth with their virility, with their ability to meet women and approach women. That’s really associated with masculinity and strength and confidence; all those things that are really important. At the end of the day, when we talk about, “How did your weekend go as a single man? How many women did you meet? How did it go?” That’s really how we connect and bond. So when our worth is so wrapped up in how well we're doing and how well we're being received by women, there's a lot in the line for us.

I think that’s why you've seen things like the seduction community pop up. In some ways, there are really ways to keep men’s feelings--isn’t that strange--from being hurt. So if they can put on a different persona and if they can talk to 100 women in a night and it's just a numbers game and they can make it into like a game or something like that, they call it the game, right? Then it's not them that’s going out of the line and it's a lot safer. So I think there's really a lot of development still left to be done here so that men are bringing their full authentic selves, women are bringing a lot of heart and compassion to that fact they want men to approach them. That feels good, makes you feel sexy. That we can really bridge that gap and make sure that every single interaction feels good and walk away. That’s certainly one of the things that I've noticed occurring in speed dating. It feels good everybody is there doing the same thing.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, exactly, and I really love what you said about that that men derive their self-worth from how well they're received by women. I don’t think women really understand that. So we could really be a little bit more responsible for the swatting or not, men are not nuts.

Oh, my God, I could talk to you all day but we have to go. We have to wrap up here. So, Scott, thank you so much for all your deep insight into what's going on out there on in the dating world and being some who cares whether or not men and women are having great interactions with each other. I really get that’s a piece of your heart in that you really want to see men and women understand each other, have great dates and great lives. So thank you for being someone who actually makes that a priority in life.

Scott Swanson: Absolutely. Thanks for having me today.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, and how can we find you?

Scott Swanson: You can find me via a couple of different sources. I've got a blog, www.endorphyn.com, you can find this by Googling Scott Swanson. I also have a website for my course, “The Six-Week” www.the6week.com or  8minuteDating.com which is where you can sign up for my events in San Francisco.

Alissa Kriteman: Awesome. Ladies, he's gorgeous and he is available, so check that out,  8minuteDating.com. I love to go down there and check it out because I just love it, I love it, and I love that it exists. It's really becoming a part of how people meet each other and I love your perspective that it's on us and it's open and you can feel the people and you're right there, so all the success in the world to you. Thank you again for being on “Just for Women”.

I'm your host, Alissa Kriteman. Listeners, please me email with anything you want to say, comments, ask questions, you can email at Alissa@PersonalLifeMedia.com. Also for texts and transcripts of this show and other shows on the Personal Life Media Network, please visit our website at PersonalLifeMedia.com. If you heard anything that you want more information about, again, yes, just go to “Just for Women”, all the transcripts are there for you.

Thank you so much for listening today. Tune in next week for more juicy news you can use. Bye bye.

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