Speed Dating for Married Couples

For better or worse, I have never attended a “speed dating” session, which I believe is a setup in which you have, say, ten minutes to chat with someone and get to know them just a bit before moving on to the next victim – I mean, individual, and so rotating amongst several potential datable candidates. What happens after that, I don’t know, since I’ve never done it. My guess is that you pick the one you like best, who is surely the favorite of at least one other person in the group, at which point you begin a conversational tug-of-war over the chosen favorite and try to win him or her over with your charms, looks, or whatever.

Not so for married couples! Or more specifically, for married couples with children. Small children, to be exact. We have two of these (under the age of five), who require, as most young children aged 19 months to 4 years, more attention and care than you ever thought possible to give during your simple and quaint dating years many, many, many years ago.

We are on vacation in beautiful Cannes, France – the Cote d’Azur, a romantic, lovely place in this month of April. Just today, my husband, Toby, and I found ourselves sitting next to each other at breakfast time at a beach café, after having each provided our daughters with various things such as sand toys, sunscreen, cookies, juice boxes, sun hats, books, crayons and paper. Toby turned to me and introduced himself, “Hi! I’m Toby. Who are you?” -- a natural pick-up line for a guy you’ve been married to for eight years, and “dating” for thirteen.

We realized that we were close enough that he could put his arm around my shoulder and we could talk while the girls occupied themselves with the above list of items for precisely 2.5 minutes, until one of them cried.

Ten minutes – ha! That is NOT speedy. Speed dating for married couples is much more expeditious and truly “speedy.” At 10-second intervals over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, those are the glimpses of the dating life we relish. And rather than rotate from candidate to candidate, you get to rediscover who this person, your spouse, is over and over again!