An event at California Clipper Credit: Courtesy Hot Potato HeartsĪfter a conversation with a friend last year about wanting to try out speed dating but finding limited options in the area, she went ahead and made a potato-themed speed dating Instagram account. Katie Conway has identified one potential answer through creating Hot Potato Hearts, a series of speed dating and friend-making events occurring at neighborhood Chicago bars. How to meet new people and form meaningful connections outside of work and school is a ubiquitous and challenging social question.
People lean in to hear over the noise or perhaps to flirt. They sat with name cards that got the basics out of the way: name, pronouns, sexuality. Some arrived alone, others accompanied by friends or coworkers. In the red-hued darkness of the California Clipper in Humboldt Park, a few dozen speed daters chattered on a damp Tuesday evening.
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