hey.kwak

Korean group blind dates, in Singapore

Four of them. One evening. You decide.

A first date is one person and two hours, and you know inside ten minutes.

This is the other shape. Four single women, four single men, one table, a drink after work. Bring a friend and it stops being a blind date at all — it's your night out, with four people you haven't met yet.

Take a seat

S$25 a seat, about what one cocktail costs. Drinks are yours to settle with the bar.

An empty round table between two armchairs in a dark bar, lit by a single lamp

Bring your own side of the table

This is what makes it a Wednesday out rather than an appointment.

Come with one friend, or two, and half your side is people you already like. You arrive together, you leave together, and you have somebody to compare notes with on the way home.

Nobody's place waits on anybody else — you each put your own name down and pay your own seat.

You don't have to decide now. Put your name down on your own, and the link to send them is waiting on your page afterwards.

7pm

Two of them are yours.The other six you haven't met.

Everyone at your table

Verified work or school email

A code to an address a personal one can't fake.

Single, on the record

Asked directly, before anybody is seated.

A real face and name

Shown to nobody. It's how the table gets built.

Paid their own seat

Enough that nobody turns up out of curiosity.

What I can't promise is that you'll like them. Nobody can — which is why you get four, and the last word.

The evening

  1. 6.55

    You walk in and say heykwak. The table is booked in that name.

  2. 7.00

    Eight of you, four a side. There are a few questions on the table, so nobody has to be the one who starts.

  3. 9.00

    It ends. Whatever anybody does after that is their own evening, not something I arrange.

  4. The next morning

    You name whoever you'd see again — one, several, or nobody at all.

  5. That evening

    Where you both said each other, I send you both a number. Where you didn't, nothing arrives and nobody is told.

Why this shape

chances, not one

Never stuck across from one stranger for two hours.

profiles to browse

Nothing for a colleague to scroll past at work.

no rejection, ever

If it isn't mutual, nothing arrives and nobody is told.

before, you get the bar

Not a minute earlier, so it can't be passed around.

How you can come

Most people

On your own

You'll be seated with others who came the same way, or beside a pair — never as the only stranger inside somebody else's group.

EasierRecommended

With a friend

Bring one, or two — single ones, since everybody at the table is. You each put your own name down and pay for your own seat, so nobody's place waits on anybody else.

Three friends is the one shape that doesn't work: it fills three of the four seats on your side and leaves the fourth person as the only outsider all night. Come as two, or as four.

Putting your name down

  1. 01

    Put your name down

    Which of the evenings on offer you can make — the next five weeks are up at any one time. Tick as many as work; the more you tick, the sooner you get seated.

  2. 02

    Tell me who you are

    A name, a year, what you do, one line, and a photo. The photo is shown to nobody — it's so the table can be put together at all.

  3. 03

    Verify your work or school email

    A code, and you're done. It comes before you pay, not after, because it costs nothing and it's what lets everybody at the table relax. No work address? Say so and I'll sort it by hand.

  4. 04

    Then pay

    Paying is what holds your place, and a pass covers several nights at a lower price. PayNow, checked by hand.

  5. 05

    I put the table together

    Eight people who can make the same evening, seated so nobody sits with someone they've met here before. If I can't seat you, the night goes back on your pass.

  6. 06

    Confirm, then turn up

    A tap the day before. Six hours out, the bar lands — along with the age and job of the four people opposite.

Several people reaching in to touch glasses over a table
Take a seat

Four a side, or three

I aim for four and four. If somebody drops out on the day it runs as three and four, which is a perfectly good evening. Below three on a side I don't run it, and your night goes back on your pass — no refund to chase, nothing to arrange.

What this isn't

It isn't dinner with strangers and it isn't networking. Everyone at the table is single and knows why they're there. If you're after new friends there are better places to spend a Wednesday — I'd rather say so here than have you work it out at the table.

Also from Seoul

Seoul Glow List

The other half of what I do: skin-clinic trips to Seoul at real local prices, booked for you, with 5% back. Lifting, boosters and lasers cost a fraction of Singapore there.

See what it costs