Do you like piña coladas? _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

Whether you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain or you’re into meet cutes and champagne, then cut through the red tape at a bar called Everybody Eats on the 6^th of November. Here, at Sapphic Speed Dating Dinner Party, you can make genuine face-to-face connections with sapphic, lesbian, queer, bi, pan, questioning, and ace-identifying cuties over a four-course supper.

“Everyone I talk to is sick of how disconnected and disheartened they feel after using dating apps”, Megan Edwards of Golden Hour Gigs says. “I wanted to create an event that was warm, open, and honest about my community’s desire for connection and love”.

Golden Hour gigs aims to create monthly connection-centred events for queer women and gender minorities, with Sapphic Speed Dating Dinner Party serving as the kick-off.

At what Edwards describes as a big, gay dinner party hosted by Ginger Velour, attendees will switch tables at the end of each course and sit with a new group of strangers. Conversation cards that “feature questions about hobbies, life goals, past relationships” will be placed on each table to “encourage self-reflection and sharing”.

“I hope that each attendee leaves feeling connected to their queer community, confident in their sapphic self-expression, and excited to come to more events”, Edwards beams, adding that it would be fantastic if people fell in love or made new friends, but she mostly wants them to feel at home. “There aren’t many queer spaces that centre women and gender minorities and just being in a sapphic-oriented space can be really healing and grounding”.