Plenty of time to get a flow going... when I went on one it was for a magazine article when speed dating was first getting around... they asked for volunteers on the Lycos dating thingy I was on.
I turned up and thought I was going to have an absolute nightmare... I was between 10 and 15 years older than all the rest of the females there... they were all pretty young things, terribly trendy, painfully thin and ALL in media/marketing/PR...
It was in London, so I'd taken the train and had a book with me... which enabled a few conversation starters on sci-fi & fantasy authors... I also got chatting about how craggy coastlines are WAY better than sandy beaches, aliens, scientology, poetry, art, ballet, crop circles, stupid things I've done while drunk... all sorts of stuff.
At the end of it, every last bloke there (apart from one who was a complete numpty and I'd told him so!
) had me marked on their card as someone they'd like to see again... I was gobsmacked... but when I got chatting to a few of them after, they all said the same thing - I was the only female there who hadn't been armed with a list of questions that made the guys feel like they were being interrogated about what they were worth financially, rather than who they were and what interested them.
When you've only got a few minutes, if you spend that time asking someone what their job is and what cars/bikes they have, you're going to come across as someone after their wallets!
Then again - I was also guilty of prejudice, thinking that the blokes would only be interested in the slim, pretty, young women...