Speed dating: Why are women more choosy?

Women are twice as choosy as men when they go speed dating, research suggests. Why might that be?

Trying to work out who is single in a bar, approach them and asking them out before you know anything about them is not a very efficient way of finding a girlfriend or boyfriend.There is a solution - speed dating, where a group of singles meet at an event in a bar or cafe. The men move from table to table for a fleeting date with each woman, lasting typically between three to four minutes.Afterwards the participants tell the organisers, often online, which people they want to see again.A recent study into speed dating habits concluded that if men and women go to an evening and have 22 separate dates, men are keen to see about five women again, while women would only choose to see two again, on average.That means that for every offer a woman makes, she has roughly a 50-50 chance that the man will want to see her again too.But for every offer a man makes, he only has a one in five chance that the desire to meet again is reciprocated.The research was done by economists Michele Belot from the University of Edinburgh and her colleague Marco Francesconi from the University of Essex.