Speed dating can either be great fun or you could see it as a chore that you dread; but you need to meet the right man or the right woman and you feel that this is the most effective and efficient way for you to go about it. Checking out a potential partner before you commit to a proper date can have its benefits! You can always walk away at the end of the exercise. Whether it’s with or without that special someone depends to some degree on how you performed. Here are some speed dating tips for men and women to help you out:

* Be yourself and use your personality to the full. This simply means that you should be relaxed to the extent that your true personality shines through. This is particularly important if you are looking for a long-term relationship. If you put on an act, it will show sooner or later, and probably end in tears.

* You be self-assured but try not to come over as being arrogant.

* Show interest in your partner by making good eye contact and smile with your eyes. This can make you appear more attractive to the other person because they have 100% of your attention. If you can make them feel that they are the only person in the room, then that is not a bad thing.

* Ask questions that matter to you, depending on your reasons for being on a speed date. Remember that time is limited so it is best to think about the questions that you want to ask beforehand and memorise them. Make sure that the questions are not asked in an intimidating way. Try to make them conversational.

* Always think long term. I was given this advice many years ago “don’t go out with someone you do not want to end up spending the rest of your life with”. It seems pretty sound advice to me, if you are looking for a serious long term relationship.

* Keep maintaining eye contact but at the same time, watch the other’s body language. You will be surprised how much you can learn from another’s body language.

* Go with your intuition; never ignore it because invariably it is right most of the times, if we honestly reflect back. If it doesn’t feel right, then it’s probably not right for you so move on.

* Finally, should it not work out on the night, don’t be dejected. At least you would have gained valuable experience from which to assess other potential partners.

Unfortunately, the popular image of the alcoholic, abusive loser who takes a foreign bride because no local woman will marry him is sometimes accurate. It would certainly be painting with too broad a brush to say that all American men who seek international brides are like this, the abusive personality does seem to be well represented among men seeking bride from overseas. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it – the foreign bride often knows very little about her husband when she comes over. By the time she discovers who he really is, she is far from home, economically dependent, unable to afford to go back home, and sometimes pregnant. Abusers sometimes take full advantage of this situation by forcing their brides to submit to treatment that few American women would put up with.

Citizenship in a prosperous Western nation greatly increases their position in the marriage market. The hope of a new life in rich America (or some other Western country) is certainly the top reason why women from third world countries wish to marry Western men (if you don’t think so, ask yourself how many of these women pursue men from Peru or Indonesia). Since the number of women is far greater than the number of Western men looking for them, supply and demand favors the Western man. It thus becomes no problem at all for a man in his 50s to marry a 20-year-old Chinese model, for example.

A lot of American men don’t like American women. One could say that opposite attract, but complaints abound among a certain segment of American men that feminism has gone too far, that it no longer has anything to do with equal rights or fairness, and that it has morphed US women into a third gender – neither masculine nor feminine, confused about their gender identity, and forever competing rather than cooperating to prove that “women can do anything men can do”. This silent war between the sexes creates a competitive atmosphere, some say, that destroys any chance for true intimacy between spouses. Because of this, American men turn to foreign countries to find a bride (and American women increasingly look overseas for husbands!).