I’ve had my fair share of experience with men in uniform. I spent the first five years of my career marketing romance novels. These guys were my forte. So you can imagine my delight when I got an invite to FastLife.ca’s Men in Uniform Speed Dating event benefitting The Princess Margaret Hospital.

Held at Libra Lounge along King West, I found myself two drinks in and combatting the first date jitters. I hadn’t prepared any witty banter. What if my ten eight-minute-long dates were awkward? I polished off my glass of pinot grig, loosened up and just told myself to enjoy the night.

The key to speed dating (which I fortunately learned early on) is to just have fun with it, be confident and be yourself. Trying to keep each date fresh, I picked up on a few key bits of information about each guy in the first minute and capitalized on that – I sang a song in Portuguese to one of them (he knew it, too!), talked podcasts with another and maybe even performed my awkward robot dance for one lucky fellow.  Maybe.

The event had a nice mix of cops, firemen, paramedics and doctors. As the night progressed, I said to myself, “Well I certainly have a type. Guys.” I found something endearing and attractive about nearly every one of them. Needless to say, breaking the ice came fairly easy to all of us, especially after we had made a nice dent in the open bar.

As with any dating experience, you’re likely to come across some rejects. Us girls were pretty good about warning each other when a bad one was headed our way. One of my dates was quite a bit older and new to the country, only visiting to write a book. He asked what I was doing this coming Saturday. I thought this was strange, is he asking me out 3 minutes into knowing me? Not the case. He had invited me (and every other lady) to a conference he was hosting. I’m fairly certain we all politely declined.

I didn’t expect to meet my Prince Charming on my first speed date outing and while I don’t think I did, I can confirm that I did have a hilariously awesome night out, met some fun guys and gals and in true Ivana style, ended up bar-hopping with near-strangers late into the night. Hey, if I’m going to party with strangers, hanging with those in public service is likely the safest way to do it.

All in all, it was an entertaining night out: hotties, open bar and proceeds going to charity.

FastLife.ca is the world’s largest multi-national speed dating and singles event service, holding more speed dating events than any other dating service. Check out FastLife.ca for upcoming events in the city.

~Ivana Simovic @isimma

Photo credit: FastLife.ca