You may have heard of the term “sliding into someone’s DMs.” Well, this is another way to slide into dating—having a friend present a set of PowerPoint slides pitching to dating prospects the many reasons why they should date you.
Yep, this is the basis of dating events such as the “Date My Mate” ones that have been popping up in London, England, pubs. In this case “mate” refers to a friend rather than a significant other. A “Date My Significant Other” presentation might get a significantly different reaction, especially from the significant other.
These events consist of people taking turns getting up and making PowerPoint presentations to pitch their single friends to others. During and after each presentation, there may be comments, questions, and laughter from the crowd. And hopefully for the single person who’s being presented, the laughter is with what’s being presented and not at it.
The point of these PowerPoint events is to provide a new dating approach—an alternative to what’s been out there. There has, for example, been increasing backlash to dating apps, as I have noted before in “A Funny Bone to Pick.” With dating apps, you have to enter a sea of people promoting themselves online and somehow stand out to those who could be good matches, which can be tough especially if you are not the type of person who likes to self-promote. At the same time, you have to wade through profiles and messages saying a lot of the same things such as “Happy-go-lucky”, “Fluent in sarcasm”, “Make me laugh”, “Looking for my partner in crime“, and “Don’t like drama,” while you try to determine what’s real versus not.
The Advantages of Such PowerPoint Presentations
These PowerPoint presentation events could power through a lot of these problems. When a friend gets up in front of a crowd to tout you, it immediately tells everyone several things. One is that you are real and not a bot, unless, of course, it’s a “Date My Bot” event. Secondly, you have at least one friend. And it’s a friend willing to vouch you, presumably. Third, what is presented has at least some basis in reality and reflects a greater degree of effort. It would a lot more difficult for someone to present a bunch of falsehoods about you in a live setting versus you posting falsehoods about yourself more anonymously online.
Plus, your friend can say what you may not feel comfortable saying about yourself. It’s one thing for you to say that you are great. It’s something totally different for others to say that about you,
Moreover, such interactive events gives others opportunities to raise questions. For example, those in the crowd can ask, “When you say that this person doesn’t like drama, why do you feel the need to say that?” The subsequent discussion can be more telling than a series of online messages like “hey”, “wassup”, “how you doing”, or “OK.”.
Such presentations are examples of the whole “friendfluence” dynamic that I have also written about previously in “A Funny Bone to Pick.” This term emphasizes the fact that your friends can play big roles in influencing your dating success in both good ways and bad. On the good side, the right friends can help introduce you to dating prospects and facilitate such prospects’ impressions of you.
Working with friends in such a manner can help you feel less alone too. Dating can be inherently a very lonely and isolating experience. Daters can act rather unpredictably and nasty to each other. And lack of success can leave you feeling rather down.
A side benefit is that preparing and making the pitch can be fun in and of itself and help you and your friends get to know each other better. It helps you see how your friend may view you and your dating approaches. You could learn to adjust your approaches, such as not telling everyone to “Make me laugh.” At the same time, this is an opportunity for you to help them better understand you and what you want. If you don’t have friends willing to vouch for you in such a manner then maybe, just maybe, you don’t have the right kind of friends.
How to Do A PowerPoint Dating Event
Of course, the two biggest hurdles to overcome for this dating approach are finding such events and finding a friend willing to make the pitch. Now, you may have to actively pitch the idea to them since your friends may not be aware of this possibility and the fact that you need help in your dating life.
It also may not be a trivial task finding a friend willing to get up in front of a crowd and say good things about you. Your friends may be shy and have stage fright. Also, you’d be surprised about how many people might call themselves your friends but ultimately not want you to succeed. Someone presenting a list of bullet points on why you suck could end up making your dating life even harder. So could a rather lukewarm or inaccurate presentation.
That person has to know you well enough as well—including your biggest selling points—and how best to present them. It helps to have a friend skilled at such presentations. An entertaining, engaging, and informative presentation could go a long way. You may not want someone getting up in front and just saying something that sounds like “Bueller… Bueller…” especially if that’s not your name.
In the end, no single dating approach—whether it’s dating apps, speed dating, professional matchmakers, or whatever—works equally well for all singles. This PowerPoint presentation approach does presents another needed option for daters, though. It may or may not work for you, your personality, and your present set of friends. Ultimately, you’ve got to choose the approaches that work most naturally and best for you. Otherwise, you may not end up presenting yourself quite so well.
