2006 Audi A4 Quattro $369/mo2006 Audi A3 starting at $25,460 It's interesting, the things people want (and don't want) others to know about them. I was reflecting on this while nosing around at a speed-dating event, "Couple Minutes," on Monday.

There was the guy who told prospects he's "proud to be an eighth-generation Hoosier." And the guy who didn't like to broadcast the fact that he works in a funeral home.The multiple people, male and female, who didn't want me to quote them by name because, apparently, a speed-dating event has a cool factor somewhere between "Saved by the Bell" marathons and 12-sided dice.Speed-dating events are entertaining because, over the course of a couple of hours, you get to watch about 400 first "dates" unfold. At the Couple Minutes event at the Avalon restaurant in Castleton, each participant met around 20 singles of the opposite sex, spending four minutes at a table with each before the clock ran down, and it was on to the next candidate.Four. Long. Minutes.To me, that seems like a possible eternity if the stranger across the table is a mouth-breather or voted for Nader, but everyone I talked to on Monday said no, it flies by.I get the feeling, though, especially from guys, that four seconds really is enough."At least nine times out of 10, you can tell right away whether you're interested," confirmed a guy in the "age 25 to 44" group.Like a lot of his fellow speed daters, he didn't want to be identified by name.But Mike Powers is cool with it. Mike is from Southern California, where things are a little more "easygoing," he says. Meeting people didn't seem like a big deal. Here, "it can feel like there's a barrier of some kind."This fits with what other transplanted Californians have told me. One guy who gets flirted with but rarely asked out by us demure Midwestern girls claims to get a much more enthusiastic reaction when he walks down the streets of Santa Cruz."Just like the Beatles," are his exact words.Anyway, Mike doesn't meet a lot of women on the job (he's an aircraft mechanic). Most of his co-workers are married.On his four-minute dates, Mike is looking for attraction, yes."But I'm not a picky guy," says Mike, 37, who does consider himself "stable" and "reliable." "In such a short time, you can't really make that decision."I'm just looking for a nice girl just to go out and have dinner, and we'll go from there."Mike did his first speed-dating event with another company in November, and has done a couple since. Only one date has come out of it, but the evenings have been interesting enough to keep him coming back.Karen Brown, who runs Couple Minutes, says that 80 percent of speed daters at any given event (they happen about twice a month) match up with at least one other person.You check off whoever you're interested in, see. If he or she checked you off, too, Karen hooks you two up the next day.A slim brunette in the age-40-plus room (the age groups overlap) was cautious about the whole thing. She's done it a few times, no big deal.You can tell right away if there's a chance of anything happening, she says. Then you talk for a few minutes and get a better idea.She doesn't like to give the guys too much personal info, like where she works. You never really know who you're talking to, after all.But just as I'm getting up to leave, she suddenly blurts out, "My friend did this and she met a guy, and now they're totally serious."On the day before Valentine's Day, hope was springing eternal.

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