After trying my luck at speed dating, I decided a new tactic by going to a speed intros evening.

The first one I tried was Muslim Speed Intros which was held in a hotel in Russell Square in Central London, England UK.

The ethos of the event was intros the halal way, and with my past track record, I figured I could do with some divine intervention, so I thought why not.

Unlike Speed Dating, Speed Intros seemed to be aimed at people looking for more serious relationships.

The girls were ushered into a room where we all sat at individual tables. The set up was a bit like a school classroom.

We then got five minutes to speak to each guy before they rotated.

When I got there, the group was evenly matched with 25 men and 25 women.

The group were a wide mix of nationalities. Apart from the Desis, there were Tunisians, Lebanese and Turkish people.

Pretty much everyone there, both guys and girls said they had come because they had marriage in mind.

The good thing about Speed Intros was it saved you from having to spend the next 25 weekends having potential rishtey come round for tea with your mum.

While that was all well and good, the one thing the organisers didn’t realise that this didn’t mean you should skip the tea as well (or in my case coffee).

As my caffeine withdrawal symptoms started to kick in, I ended up having to go to the hotel bar to get a stiff drink to keep myself going – an extra large black espresso no less.

Nearly all the girls wore Western clothes, apart from one who turned up in shalwar kameeze and seemed to feel uncomfortable which was a shame because it didn’t have that kind of atmosphere.

If anything, I was the one who seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, particularly as my leather trousers didn’t go down too well with the row of disapproving auntijee’s in hijaab who were sitting in the guests section, even though I had worn them with a kurta and jacket.

The guys were mostly dressed in a casual way, and maybe could have put more of an effort in. But having said that, when I spoke to them, they were all really decent guys who you could introduce to your mum.

There was one chap there who seemed to have got the event mixed up with a Muslim Missionaries convention as he was more interested in preaching Islam to all the girls rather than getting to know anyone.

The funny thing was he didn’t have the beard and the pot belly to go with it. In fact he bore more than a passing resemblance to a well know Bollywood actor.

Apart from him, all the others were chilled out and interested in what I had to say.

Although there wasn’t really any chemistry with any of the guys, I hit it off with one of them mainly because he had turned up in a cool kurta, similar to mine with jeans and also got the same glares from the auntijees. I decided to stay in touch with him, so we could exchange fashion tips.

I have to admit though, by the time I got to number 15, despite my coffee, I started to feel a bit overwhelmed and confused about which guy was which.

The only down side, apart from the lack of coffee and tea was that the girls were not that friendly and tended to keep themselves to themselves or just hung out with the friends they turned up with. It was all a bit clique which was a shame as they missed out on a good way of making new friends and an opportunity to compare notes.

Muslim Speed Intros UK are hosted by Ayesha & Haras