Usually, “missing a connection” when riding the train just means having to wait a little longer on the platform. However, with its second incarnation of the Flirt-Express, Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railway company, hopes to change all that.
On the eve of Valentine’s Day, Deutsche Bahn will play Cupid, inviting singles from across the country to participate in a speed dating event aboard 10 of its trains.
With the help of champagne and balloons, hopeful singles get a chance to talk to each other for five minutes before having to switch seats. "The couple must then decide whether they want to take it further," said Deutsche Bahn in a statement. If both parties are mutually interested, the company will send contact information to both a few days later.
For those who are still undecided about somebody they have met, Deutsche Bahn is organizing parties for after the ride, where passengers can flirt to their hearts content.
Several flirting couples sit in a commuter train (S-Bahn) in the northern town of Hamburg as the German railway company Deutsche Bahn has organised in 15 towns so-called "Flirt-Express" trains, in which singles can meet other singles during five-minute dates, on Valentine's Day on February 14, 2008. AFP PHOTO DDP/ ROLAND MAGUNIA
The Flirt-Express departs on Feb. 13 from 10 major German cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Kiel and Cologne, and will last about two to three hours.
Speed dating vs. SpeedDating
Speed dating, which allows singles to meet many potential partners for a limited amount of time, is fundamentally based upon the idea of “love at first sight.” Prospective couples have only minutes to get to know each other before having to decide whether or not they are interested.
The concept of “love at first sight” has been kicking around for centuries. In the classical world, this kind of passionate feeling was often described as theia mania or “madness from the gods.” Lovers were said to be stung by Cupid’s arrows or, in the case of Narcissus, an immediate and overwhelming desire for one’s one image.
In Medieval times, there was a particular focus on women’s eyes as the source of piercing infatuation. For the Provençal troubadour poets, when a lady met the eyes of a future lover, her love would generate beams of light that passed from her eyes to his. This passion would later travel to his heart.
However, speed dating is a distinctly modern phenomenon. Its origins are attributed to Los Angeles Rabbi, Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, of the Orthodox Jewish organization Aish HaTorah.
Yaacov Deyo, along with his wife Sue Deyo, developed speed dating in the late 1990s as an attempt to help Jewish singles meet each other and, hopefully, marry. "Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s people dated to get married," Sue Deyo told Harvard Magazine. Now, according to the couple, dating is increasingly less oriented towards that particular goal.
"Short-term bursts, ‘hooking up’: that’s what people are looking for and doing now in dating," Yaacov Deyo told the publication. "It’s not because they don’t want more meaningful relationships. I think it’s a question of them not knowing how to get there -- I think they just cannot figure it out."
The couples’ events proved a success. Hundreds of Jews have met and married through this venue, according to their website. Aish HaTorah has since trademarked the word “SpeedDating,” although the idea has taken root all over the world.
A fairy tale night?
Deutsche Bahn’s Flirt-Express has proved incredibly popular as well. Last year, 5,000 singles registered for only 800 seats, Deutsche Bahn said.
The 500 seats available for this year’s trop are already full. “Unfortunately, the places for possible fairy tale princes and dream girls are limited,” its website laments.
With such promises of fairy tale magic, commuters’ rides to work the following week may seem just a little dull.
Jessica Dorrance/Expatica
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On the eve of Valentine’s Day, 500 German singles will climb aboard Deutsche Bahn’s "Flirt-Express" trains to meet the love of their lives.
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