TACOMA – When Mary, Queen of Peace Parish held a Catholic speed dating event just before Valentine’s Day, more than 80 young adults showed up from as far away as Bellingham and Eastern Washington.

Overall, the night was a success, said Anne Sweeney, the parish’s young adult coordinator who planned the event. Each person met about 20 people of the opposite sex within a short period of time. Some matches were made; for others, it was an opportunity to practice their face-to-face dating skills.

“People appreciated the honesty in person,” Sweeney said, adding she thinks young people are tired of online dating. 

Now a Catholic speed-dating event is being hosted May 31 at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Tacoma. Sponsored by the Archdiocese of Seattle’s young adult ministry, the event for Catholics ages 21-35 is limited to 40 women and 40 men, and had only one woman’s spot left on May 29, Tyler Tangen, the archdiocese’s director of young adult ministry, said in an email.

The event, he said, will be great for community building and “provide a space to fine-tune conversation skills that might better aid … finding a partner in a more regular setting.”

Tangen said he hopes participants will grow more comfortable encountering Christ in others in a safe and fun place.

Young adults gather for a Catholic speed dating event in February at Mary, Queen of Peace Parish in Sammamish. About 80 young adults from as far away as Bellingham and Eastern Washington attended. (Photo: Courtesy of Anne Sweeney)

Growing in self-knowledge

According to a 2013 New York Times article, speed dating was invented in 1998 by a rabbi in Los Angeles to help single Jewish people to find spouses. The idea took off across the country in various forms. Although Catholic speed dating isn’t particularly unique, it’s apparently not common in the Archdiocese of Seattle.

The idea for the Sammamish event started with one of Sweeney’s co-workers suggesting speed dating as a way for the area’s young adults to meet other Catholics. But Sweeney said she was skeptical and didn’t want to be a poster child for Catholic speed dating in the region.

“But then it really was the Lord’s providence,” said Sweeney, who is also the parish’s high school youth minister.

At a different event Sweeney was hosting, an attendee who recently moved from Ohio mentioned Catholic speed dating events held there. At the women’s suggestion, Sweeney contacted the event planner in Ohio.

“It was really beautiful. She really changed my heart,” Sweeney said.

The event planner took a “more catechetical” approach to speed dating, Sweeney said, “in the sense that you bring people together, you teach them how to interact with one another, and then you also grow in self-knowledge, which is always a gift.”

Sweeney said she was glad to host the speed dating night at her parish to give young adults the opportunity to potentially meet their future spouse or others who might become good friends. 

The event empowered the young adults “to invest in themselves, to present themselves in a way that is in line with their own values in their truth and integrity,” Sweeney said.

Tangen said the May 31 speed dating event “is a bit of an experiment to see if there is a clear need for events like this continuously or if they are more impactful on a once-a-year scale.”

Sweeney said she hopes there will be more events around the archdiocese so different groups of young adult Catholics can attend.

“The art of dating is hard, but it’s also a learned skill,” Sweeney said. “If you don’t date, you don’t know how.”