u/Emi-user1

I turned 38 this past spring. Never dated before in my life. Never had a boyfriend. Never been married so I told myself it was time to do something about it.

I figured, why not do something new and unexpected? Something I'd never normally do. I'd heard of speed dating before, and I'd also heard that building real confidence means doing things outside your comfort zone. So I searched "things to do in Sacramento," found Eventbrite, and discovered there are actually quite a few speed dating events around here. I picked one in Folsom for the 30-40 crowd. Paid $35.

Walking in, I was nervous, the kind of nervous where you sit in your car for an extra minute before going inside. But I gathered my courage and walked in anyway. Got my name tag from the host, got seated. Looked around: 8 women, 3 men. Not exactly the "1:1 experience" promised on Eventbrite, but I figured maybe people were just late.

8:20pm. Still 8 women, 3 men.

Then the male host walks over and announces that a car with five guys is on the way, and should be here in about fifteen minutes. He walks off. Something in my brain immediately goes off. Why are five guys arriving together, in one car, right on cue? Are they paying customers, or people the company hired to fill the room?

A few minutes later I caught the host and asked him directly: "Those five new guys, are they paying customers?" He says yes and walks away.

But my gut isn't buying it. What are the odds that five complete strangers end up carpooling together, arriving at exactly the moment needed to balance the ratio? It doesn't add up. I keep it to myself and wait.

About fifteen minutes later, they show up, rushed, the host hurriedly walking them to their seats. They sit down. Now it's exactly eight women, eight men. Perfect ratio. Time to rotate.

One of them sits across from me first. I talked to him for the full six minutes, kind, easygoing, nothing unusual. When the rotation bell goes, the next guy sits down. He looks young, so I ask him straight out how old he is. Twenty. No job right now. I ask what brought him out tonight. He gives me some version of "my friend signed me up, told me to try something new, but he backed out last minute so here I am," then points across the room at the guy I'd just talked to: "That's my friend. We came together." I smile and nod. He asks how my night's going. I tell him it's been very interesting, that I'm learning something new I never knew before, and I mean it more than he realizes. We make small talk until the six minutes run out.

Next up: a guy from Hong Kong, grew up in the Bay Area, early thirties. I'd actually noticed him earlier, checking in around the same time I did. I ask if this is his first event like this. He says it's actually his second, and tells me honestly that he never really paid attention to the romantic part of his life growing up, and now he feels like he's missing out, so he's trying new things, trying to look for someone to share his life with. This guy felt genuine. He was actually looking for a connection. That felt real, and it stood out even more against everything else that night.

Six minutes up. Another guy sits down. Same small talk, same question from him: how's your night going? I tell him the same thing, it's been very interesting, I'm learning something I didn't know before, and I'm smiling big when I say it. He asks how so, tell him more. So I do: "This is my first time at something like this, and honestly, this whole thing seems very sketchy." His eyes light up, he laughs with this knowing look, and says: "You're finally catching on." We both knew exactly what we were talking about at that moment. We laughed. And right on cue, the six minutes ended for another rotation.

But I didn't want to rotate again. I got up, handed my sheet to the host without checking off a single name, and walked out. That last conversation confirmed what I already knew: the whole thing was, at least partly, manufactured.

I walked to my car laughing a little too hard at what had just happened and lost a little bit of hope. I never knew the dating industry could be like this. I thought speed dating might be a little awkward, sure, but genuine. Instead, I got a front-row look at how people can profit off of other people's hope. Off their vulnerability.

It knocked my hope down for a minute, not gonna lie. But then I got to thinking, there are good, real people out there. The guy from Hong Kong. The other women who paid their $35 hoping for something honest, same as me. Even with everything rigged around us, we still showed up real.

Looking back, the part I keep sitting with isn't even the sketchy setup, it's that the second I had my answer, I didn't stay to finish the night out or be polite about it. I just got up, handed in my sheet, and left. No big scene, no explanation needed. My gut told me something was off way before I had proof, and once I had the proof, I didn't need permission from anyone to walk away. Trust that feeling when something's off. You don't owe anyone your full night just because you paid for a ticket or don't want to seem rude.

But at the end of the day, that's not even the biggest thing I walked away with. I realized that in a world full of fake people, fake setup, it's just really important to be yourself. Just be you, your whole self, not some curated version you think people want, not a script, not a performance. Just you. The event itself was fake, or at least half fake, but sitting there in the middle of it, I got to appreciate something true about myself. I am real. I have hope and dreams. And it's okay for me to just be me. The right person, whenever they show up, will know me and love me for who I am.

Honestly, I don't even know what I was so nervous about walking in that night. I walked out feeling more courageous than when I got there. And I walked out realizing I'm already enough, just as I am.

And Sacramento, that’s my speed dating experience in this city.