A Record-Breaking Bounce with Doing Something (Kink)

DoingSomething have a reputation for staging some of the zaniest dating events in London town, and last weekend was no exception.  Easter Sunday became Ping Pong Sunday for London Singletons, as the company tried to break a rather random world record.  30 Dates sent Kink along to find out more …

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx

Last weekend, while Miss Twenty-Nine and The Coincidental Dater were off to Amsterdam for the second Date Around the World, I was sent to report on the World’s Biggest Ping Pong Date.

Now I can’t say Ping Pong on a Sunday evening is my usual idea of fun!  In fact I’ve never played before in my life (and to be honest after the event I still don’t think I can really say I have!) but as it was Easter Sunday I thought it might be a fun night out and at the very least would keep me away from the chocolate!

In the run up to the event, I signed up to Doing Something – it’s not a dating site I’d really heard of before but I loved the concept of meeting up with someone who wanted to do something you were interested in too, and for the purposes of the event I listed my suggested date as the ping pong night.

This worked really well as in the run up to the event, as members were able to let me know they ‘liked my date suggestion’ (a bit like a Facebook poke or like).   A couple of people even messaged me to let me know they would be attending, which was a great way to get a feel for who would be around on the night.

I didn’t really try to arrange to meet any of them as such or to go on an official date with any of them but I can imagine if there was someone who sparked your interest it would have been fun to agree to go together.

After doing the family thing on Easter Sunday I headed over to Bounce around 9pm. I’ve got to say it was a bit of a random location for an Easter Sunday as it’s in the middle of the Holborn.  It was a little eerie walking through the ghost town that is the City of London at the weekend. Bounce was easy to find though as it already had a crowd outside.

Luckily I had a couple of friends inside already, and I’ve got to say I was really relieved, I really don’t know how people go to these things alone!  I was terrified enough walking in solo and locating my friends. I can’t imagine going in and knowing you were by yourself and had to strike up conversation with a stranger! Miss Twenty-Nine, you are a brave woman! 
This was compounded by the fact that once I was inside the place was rammed! I mean really packed! It looked more like an Ibiza night club than a table tennis pub in Holborn – I was amazed!

 

The queue for the bar was about four people deep the whole way around, all the tables were full of people already playing table tennis and the atmosphere was buzzing!  Suddenly breaking a world record for the most number of people playing ping pong on a date didn’t seem all that unrealistic!

Maybe it was all the Easter sugar, maybe it was just knowing they didn’t have to go to work on Monday, but either way Bounce was the place that Sunday night!  
I found my friends, we chatted to a few guys and watched some fun games of ping pong.  It looked a bit competitive though so I have to admit we didn’t play any games!  
I thought is was a great event and genuinely one of the busiest singles events I’ve been too, but more importantly it didn’t feel like a singles event.

It just felt like a fun night out with friends, in a nice bar, with a fun activity thrown into the mix as a conversation starter. I do think I benefitted however from having friends there.  As it was a bar style environment –  noisy, busy etc –  I feel like it would have been a really difficult event to have gone to alone.  I had also expected that the ping pong itself would have been more organised, so that if you’d gone on your own they would  set you up with someone to play with.  If this was happening, then I didn’t notice it.

As for whether they succeeded in breaking any records – watch this space, and we’ll try to find out!

 

All in all though a great event and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for what Doing Something are orgainising next!

Kink