Surveys tell us around 5 in every 5 Americans is single, divorced, widowed, married in unhappy relationships, married and swing, or married and lie about whether they swing or not. That makes for a lot of people trying to find the right person out there, and keeping their significant other from finding out about it. In some major markets, for busy single people or adulterers on the move, “fuck and run dating” has become the hippest way to meet Mr., Ms., or Mrs. Right, and her sister.
It started in New York City as a gangbang gone weird, but “fuck and run parties” have sprung up in other major urban markets as a way for couples to get together and speed up the meeting process for people who haven’t found the person they want to be with yet. As Valentine’s Day approaches, more people than ever are signing up for fuck-and-run dating.
“People love it because you spend less time getting to know someone and what makes them compatible or incompatible,” said Mitzy Horowitz, a single art gallery owner who has been hosting fuck-and-run parties since 2002. “With fuck-and-run dating, you compress months—sometimes even years worth of a relationship into a few hours. Or as Grandma Horowitz used to tell me, ‘You never know if someone’s going to fuck you over until they fuck you over.’”
That’s precisely what fuck-and-run parties are all about. As Horowitz describes, it’s a socially acceptable environment for what is traditionally called a “one night stand,” and which I call the weekend. Copious amounts of alcohol and drugs are made available to party guests, which gives them all the excuse they need to cut loose and hit the sack with someone they just met. But fuck-and-run goes beyond the awkward sexual encounter, since after the sex, instead of going to sleep, the couple is then encouraged to hash out their relationship issues and guilt and confused intentions immediately following intercourse. Cuddling gives way to shouting, foreplay becomes guilt trips and insinuations, and sometimes, the more astute fuck-and-run dater can jump straight to “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” Months that might have been spent turning love into emotional issues is covered in a few short hours, leaving more time to search for someone not out to just fuck you over.
Nicole Wesley, a partygoer since December 2004, praised its way of building relationship experience.
“Before I started coming to fuck-and-run parties, I spent six years dating two different guys,” said Wesley, waiting on the couch for the next party to start. “Both of them turned out to be real losers—one a jobless dopesmoker, the other a real controlling macho shit. Since I started fuck-and-run dating, I’ve met three different guys—all complete pricks. But I did it in a two-month time span, and really compressed the emotional suffering to a short time. I can’t believe how much faster the miserable experience of meeting the wrong person can be!”
Men, too, are enjoying the ease of speed-breaking-up.
“Within about twenty minutes of making out with this beautiful girl, she went totally fucking psycho on me,” says NYU college student Gopher Grass. “All I was doing was checking the messages on my cell phone and she accused me of sleeping with someone on the side. I was like, damn, that was fast! I mean, five of the girls I’ve dated have gone psycho on me, but it took weeks or even months sometimes. I knew within twenty minutes I had made a bad fucking choice for a relationship mate! That’s what a matchmaker dating experience should be.”
Rough estimates say fuck-and-run dating has a 100% success rate—no couples have continued dating since the parties began, but all have happily broken up and been glad not to have wasted more time on the futile pursuit of love with someone clearly wrong for them. And there’s more innovations on the way—party hostesses like Mitzy Horowitz are already at work on weekend getaways to simulate seven years of stifling, soul-crushing marriage.