Speed Dating: Now With Built-In Rejection and Complimentary Humiliation

Last night I tried Coronacrush speed dating, which is an algorithm-based romantic experience designed to remove inefficiency from modern dating and replace it with something far more honest: rapid-fire disappointment.

It begins, as all questionable life choices do, with a login.

You sit there, composed, mildly optimistic, pretending this is not just loneliness wearing better lighting. The interface is clean. Promising. Clinical, almost. Somewhere, an algorithm has decided you are compatible with a series of men you have never met, based on criteria that probably include your willingness to admit you like “good conversation.”

The first man was Kenny.

Kenny, in a bold and innovative move, did not arrive.

Now, this is where Coronacrush distinguishes itself from traditional dating. In real life, being stood up requires effort. Planning. Travel. Emotional investment. Here, Kenny achieved the same result without leaving his house, his couch, or possibly his own internal stagnation.

The screen waited. I waited. Kenny did not.

There is something almost poetic about being ghosted by a man the algorithm insisted you should meet. A quiet reminder that no matter how advanced technology becomes, it will never outpace a man’s ability to simply… not show up.

Eventually, the system did what Kenny could not. It moved on.

Next.

And just like that, I was reabsorbed into the romantic production line.

This is the rhythm of Coronacrush: a sequence of men, each delivered with the optimism of a system that does not understand human behaviour, and removed with the efficiency of something that absolutely does.

The next man appeared. He smiled, as if he had been briefed. We exchanged greetings that felt less like conversation and more like two people acknowledging the terms and conditions of their existence.

“So, what are you looking for?”

An extraordinary question, considering we had approximately three minutes and the emotional range of a voicemail greeting.

I considered answering honestly: stability, depth, someone who understands nuance and doesn’t require an algorithm to initiate basic interaction.

Instead, I said something vague and socially acceptable, because we are all performing, even when we pretend not to be.

He nodded, relieved. We continued.

This is what the app does well, in a bleak, efficient way. It strips dating down to its barest elements. There is no time to curate, to overthink, to construct an elaborate persona. You are simply there. Live. Unedited. Slightly exposed.

And people, it turns out, are very revealing under time pressure.

Some men were kind. Some were rehearsed. Some had clearly mistaken emotional availability for a personality trait.

One man informed me he was “very self-aware,” which is usually the first sign that he is not.

Another spoke at length about “growth,” as if he were a mid-range houseplant.

But occasionally, something real slipped through.

A question that wasn’t transactional. A pause that wasn’t awkward, just… human. A moment where the performance dropped, and for a second, it felt like two people rather than two profiles.

And then—

“Time’s up.”

Of course it is.

Nothing is allowed to develop. Not here. Not in a system that treats connection like a limited-time offer with no option to extend.

It is, in its own way, deeply honest. Brutal, but honest.

Because the truth is, most connections don’t need hours to reveal themselves. A few minutes is enough. Enough to know if there is curiosity. Enough to know if there is something resembling chemistry. Enough to know if you would willingly give this person more of your time, which, at this point, feels like the most valuable currency any of us has left.

And Kenny, in his absence, set the tone beautifully.

He reminded me that before the conversations, before the questions, before the faint flickers of connection, there is a much simpler baseline requirement for dating:

Presence.

Show up. Physically, digitally, emotionally. Just… arrive.

And if that feels like too much, then no algorithm, however sophisticated, is going to save you.

By the end of the evening, I had cycled through enough men to qualify for some kind of emotional frequent flyer program. I was tired, slightly amused, and reluctantly impressed.

Not by the app.

Let’s stay serious.

But by the strange persistence of hope that keeps people logging in, showing up, answering the same questions, offering small pieces of themselves to strangers in timed intervals.

There is something both absurd and quietly moving about that.

Coronacrush did not deliver love.

Kenny made sure of that early on.

But it did deliver clarity. A reminder that connection cannot be engineered, scheduled, or optimized into existence. It either happens, or it doesn’t. And no amount of swiping, matching, or algorithmic confidence will change that fundamental truth.

Still, we try.

We log in. We sit there. We wait for Kenny, or someone better than Kenny, or at the very least, someone who understands the revolutionary concept of attending their own date.

Because beneath the sarcasm, the exhaustion, the increasingly refined ability to detect nonsense within thirty seconds, there is still that inconvenient, persistent instinct.

Hope.

Not the dramatic kind. Nothing so embarrassing.

Just the quiet willingness to believe that somewhere, in between “next” and “time’s up,” someone might actually show up.

Which, at this point, feels less like a romantic ideal and more like a baseline miracle.

Kenny, for the record, did not achieve it.

The bar, gentlemen, is now subterranean.

Act accordingly.