Either specifically (“Can you help me get a date with Susie Q there?”) or generally (“Do you know anyone you might set me up with?”)- how did it go?
I’ve been set up a couple of times by various friends. It was always kind of akward and uncomfortable. It’s hard being thrown together with someone you’ve never met, much less had a conversation with, before. And if your friends that are setting you up are there too, there’s that weird air of expectation you have to deal with.
Not a fan of the “set up” at all. In this day and age of internet dating, there’s really no need. Jump online and there’s tons of people you can spark up a conversation with all on your own.
A good friend of mine met her boyfriend of a couple years through a set-up, though, so YMM of course, V.
Yup.
One friend has set me up a few times (usually along the lines of ‘lets go hang out for whatever reason, this guy happens to be single so go for it’). Her mom also set me up once, I went on a very lovely date with a guy, was quite into him… he called me a few days later and said he’d decided to get back together with his ex. (At least he had the decency to call me instead of leaving me hanging.)
It can be awkward though, a few of the setups were basically blind dates. Went well enough and were nice guys but no real spark. Not any different than some dates I’ve had from POF really, only with a friend vetting them instead of screening their profiles and conversations via messaging.
Current BF is a FoaF deal. One friend happened to be in town, so I went to a singles party with her to keep company and check out the scene. He happened to be in town also for something else and decided to pop in. She introduced us (she knew him from the scene where they live) and we hit it off. Been together since October.
I have been a couple times. No real sparks yet, but I do appreciate the effort.
Yep. Ended up dating the best friend of the person I was being set up with. Go with what works, I guess.
I’ve been the victim of set ups before. 
For the most part, not only was there no spark, but actual WTF-were-you-thinking? going on. As said by a previous poster, YMMV.
Yes. Two friends, a married couple named Mike and Crystal, set me up with a co-worker, Lauren. We dated for about two months before Crystal left Mike for one of their friends, and Mike slept with Lauren.
I broke up with Lauren immediately, but she found out she was pregnant shortly afterward. She swore she hadn’t slept with Mike more than once, and I spent the next eleven months thinking the child was mine because I believed her, and the math seemed to corroborate her story, because I was almost always at her apartment and I don’t know when they would have had time to sleep together. I finally paid for a paternity test two months after he was born, though, and he wasn’t mine. That means they’d probably been cheating for half of my relationship.
Yup
Turned out she Majored in fraud.
Willing to try again thou.
Yeah, a couple of times, though not since the invention of internet dating. One setup was with a guy who I ended up dating for about three years.
That is how I met my ex. His Aunt was my landlady. She feels terrible about it. Never fix up somebody with the idea that they can be fixed with the right person.
I will never get why people feel the need to make it obvious that they’re setting you up. If you know two people you think would get along, why not just invite both of them to a party, dinner, some other social occasion. They’ll meet…if there’s a spark great, if not, no worries or awkwardness. I do not understand the concept of the blatant set-up. Why do people do this?
It’s how I met my wife: my oldest friend was her housemate in college. I was standing up at his wedding and didn’t have a date; she didn’t know anyone at the wedding other than the people at the table for the groomsmen. He sat her next to me, we hit it off, and we started dating a few weeks later.
I asked him if this was all intentional. His response: “Well, you both sucked at picking people out for yourselves. I figured the best I could do is sit you next to each other and see what happened.”
Having most of our friends be people we both know helped us at the beginning, as there was no “my one friend blahblah…” awkward conversation.
That’s how I met my wife, too – my former classmate worked with her former classmate.
I didn’t ask for it; it was an ambush in my case!
Yup.
I was tired of crashing and burning with internet dates, so I figured my friends knew what I liked and liked me enough not to set me up with a complete asshole. So I asked them, with him in mind.
The one who introduced us signed our marriage license as the witness.
Been set up many times by friends and family. This has taught me something, specifically that when someone who has known me for decades, potentially all of my life, says:
“I know a girl who is just perfect for you!”
It means:
“I have no clue what you are looking for in a woman other than that she breathes oxygen!”
Most setups feel awkward, moreso if the “matchmakers” are present because there is this presumption that you will fall in love with each other at first sight, sparks will fly, chemistry will be instantaneous, and all of the normal conversation/getting to know each other feels like it’s taking place before a breathless audience.
It got to the point where I have told my friends/family that I truly enjoy meeting people, especially single women of around my age, however the proper way to do this is to invite us both to some normal social occasion (dinner, watching somebody’s kid’s ballgame, BBQ, party, etc), introduce us and don’t have any expectations beyond us meeting each other. Let us get to know each other like normal human beings - if there’s an interest the two of us will figure it out, if not then it’s like meeting anyone else at a party, no letdown.
I’m going through one right now. I went on three dates with someone in December and January. Things looked really promising at first, but date 3 just died. It was pretty diappointing. Then a month ago, out of the blue, I heard from her. She said she had a friend who wanted to meet me.
I’ve called the friend twice, and we talked for a total of about 105 minutes. Still haven’t set up a date. I’ll try calling her tonight to see if she can meet me in the next week.
It will be very interesting to see what kind of woman that the woman who set us up thinks I should be dating.
Yes, he turned out to be a sociopath. Not kidding. Due to the combination of my own stupidity and my trust in this group of mutual friends, (all of whom adored him) it took me almost two years to figure it out.
I give up.
This sounds like great fodder for a sitcom, or barring that, a concocted reality TV show.
Not a Jane Austen fan, are you, dear?
Personally, I always find it most awkward when being interrogated by the friends as to why it didn’t work out (as inevitably it does not) and/or what I said to the young lady in question to make her express the desire to never meet me again.
Stranger
Twice. The first time was a setup through a not-so-close friend who lived too far away to realize that the guy she was setting me up with was a drug addict. Obviously it didn’t work out.
The second time was a face-to-face introduction via a mutual friend in a bar in September 2006. I married him last September on the anniversary of that introduction.
Several times, with negative results.
On the other hand, the last person I was set up with has now been married to me for 29 years.