Hoping to find friends and possibly a romantic partner, Rain Mercado, a fourth-year San Francisco State University student, decided to attend a Speed Dating & Friend Making event hosted by Associated Students Queer and Trans Resource Center on Thursday.

“I am looking for friends and romance,” Mercado said. “ I’m not really holding any particular expectation. I’m just like, ‘Whatever happens, happens.’”

Mercado explained that they want to build an emotional connection with someone before proceeding with anything physical and that finding a partner like that can be rather difficult.

QTRC’s event was a part of week-long activities in honor of National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11. These activities included pride parties, drag as a labor of love and an evening with Julio Salgado, a gay Mexican-born artist.

“It definitely is pretty difficult because there’s a lot of expectation about what relationships entail,” Mercado said. “It makes it difficult for me to find someone who’s willing to be patient with me.”

In the Rigoberta Menchú Hall, each student filled out a form with their contact information and filled out a name tag including pronouns and one of three colors.

These colors indicated the type of connection each participant desired, with blue seeking friendship, red seeking a date or romance and purple seeking a possible sexual encounter.

Each table was decorated with a white tablecloth, green leaves and a candle in the middle to give a romantic yet lighthearted feeling.

Every interaction lasted three minutes, with each table having multiple small strips of paper with questions to break up any awkward tension. Once the three minutes finished, one person would rotate to the next table.

Lucas Strecker, a third-year transfer student from Skyline College, did not move from their table and had a different partner approach them.

“It made me feel less anxious and stable because I knew all the questions and how I wanted to answer them,” Strecker said. “Sometimes you just sit there in silence for a second and I had to be like, ‘I feel like this is a good question. Do you want to go over this one?’”

After each interaction, the non-rotating participant checked a box whether they wanted a friendship, a romance or a hookup with the person they just met.

If that individual checked any of the three options, QTRC would send an email notifying the other person of the interaction they wanted.

“I’ve said yes to everybody because I’d rather get to know everybody and hopefully see them at future events,” Strecker said. “It’s been really good to see a lot of people here that are seeking friendships and are so open to talk about themselves.”

Blake Griffith, a transfer student from San Luis Obispo and the assistant director of QTRC, said students could shoot their shot at other people by checking off one of the three boxes.

Griffith did not know anyone at SFSU before this semester. They said being a part of QTRC has helped them interact with new people.

“This job has helped me kind of come out of my shell,” Griffith said. “I definitely enjoy meeting new people and so I hope that they[students] make friends and potentially find a date too.”

Once the event began, students continued coming into the room. However, there needed to be more tables for everyone.

“The turnout was really good and the queer life is really thriving this semester,” Griffith said. “I think during COVID, the queer life wasn’t as active and so now it’s all happening again.”

Griffith hoped to provide a safe space for everyone, making sure each student felt at ease, as the idea of speed dating can cause anxiety for some.

After the event, students were seen hanging out and sharing contact information, hinting that the Speed Dating & Friend Making was a success.