Is speed dating a good idea? Opinion was split as Pixelsmith headed off for a singles' night.

"Hello. So, what do you do? That sounds interesting. Have you tried this before? Me neither. Bye!"

Take that conversation, multiply it by 15 and the result, give or take a few awkward pauses and the odd tangent, is what's commonly known as speed dating. It is a modern procedure which aims to create relationships by exploiting the laws of probability, cramming a gaggle of singletons into a room and forcing them to talk to each other in sequence for a couple of hours in the hope that their sheer weight of numbers produces a wedding.

It's a sound theory. Picture a pair of conveyor belts filled with pink and blue suitcases. They trundle past each other, waving cheerfully but secretly sizing each other up and making mental notes – "a bit tatty", "overstuffed", "nice straps", that kind of thing.

Once the process is finished, the suitcases are unceremoniously dumped in the street, and the next day they all head to a website to mark each one of the opposing-coloured suitcases as a "yes" or a "no". In the rare cases where a "yes" turns out to be mutual, the lucky pair are given each other's contact details and they tumble off into the sunset, spilling clothing and toiletries as they go.

Obviously luggage doesn't have its own contact details, or the ability to log onto the internet, or for that matter any kind of capacity for conscious thought, but it's an analogy, alright?

So that's speed dating. What, you might ask, is it doing in your newspaper, accompanied by a picture of a short, 29-year-old male whose trousers need ironing. That's a good question. I haven't really got an answer.

Anyhow, some time ago I went speed dating. I had just returned from a week-long holiday comprised primarily of Swedish cider, carrying a cumulative hangover powerful enough to demolish a house. The kind of all-encompassing, empty furriness that makes you look in the mirror, puffy-eyed, and re-evaluate your entire life.

Let's never feel like this again, I promised myself. And the way to do that? Exercise, healthy eating and, for some reason which seemed to make sense at the time, speed dating.

A couple of weeks later my fridge and cupboards were full of fruit and veg, the unfathomably toned staff at the gym were getting used to my lunchtime visits and I had signed up for an evening of dating.

I search for something in the closest town but the first available event was for people aged 45-60 and I had no idea where to get hold of a false beard. So I looked further afield, found a night for 24-34-year-olds in Leeds and signed up.

It swiftly emerged that everyone has an opinion about speed dating. Some people think it sounds unnatural, introduction by numbers with all the charm and romance of a lab coat and clipboard. Some think it sounds fun, an excuse to indulge in friendly banter with more strangers than you would usually chat to in a week.

And some think it sounds genuinely hideous, an awkward series of social car crashes enjoyable only for their brevity. All of these people are correct.

My favourite anecdote, as the night approached, came from a colleague whose friend had actually been to such an event, for people in their 40s. It didn't sound like a complete success.

One woman sat with a checklist, ticking off questions one by one as she talked to her potential suitors. Do you smoke? Have you ever been married? Have you ever worn a skirt and enjoyed it? Are you a terrorist?

Meanwhile, one of the men spent the entirety of his allotted conversation time complaining that his bus had been late, pointing out how difficult was to get a bus around here, explaining how the area was not especially well served with rail links, therefore making bus travel the only option, and asking if anybody knew when the last bus home was. I only wish she'd got his number, because I'd like to marry him myself.

Thus it was that I embarked on my night of speed dating with more than a little trepidation. More on that next week