No, this article is not about paying cash for sexual favors, you naughty boy. It's about a new craze that is sweeping a number of major cities in America, one that gives dating as much ease and convenience as getting a fast food meal, going for drive-through coffee or shopping online. It's called the six minute date.

By now, you're probably familiar with how it works, especially since this revolutionary new dating method has been played up in media in recent months. For example, the lawyer Miranda from HBO's hit series “Sex in the City” once gave it a whirl. The same goes for chaste Andy in the movie “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” although the results in both cases were not very encouraging.

Nonetheless, these “fast food dates” are becoming increasingly more popular in many places based on the premise that city life has just become much too fast these days that people don't stand still long enough to allow Cupid's arrow to find its mark. People are just too concerned with too many things these days that they hardly have any time for romance or to date. It's come to the point that some people now consider dating to be obsolete. Hence, these six-minute days may be the logical way to go.

This is how it works: you sign up for a particular one night-dating service where you join about a 20 or so other women who will be “dating” the same number of men. Seats are arranged around a large circular area, bunched in pairs. The men fall in line at one side and the women on the other. When a bell rings, everyone takes the seat closest to him or her and starts chatting with their “dates”. After six minutes, the bell rings once again and that's the signal for everyone to move a set forward to date someone else.

There is no opportunity to reject anyone else (hey, it's six minutes, just grin and bear it). And there's hardly a chance to get bored because the date ends so quickly. But the best part is, you actually get to meet some interesting people and don't waste any time on the uninteresting ones.

In a time of limited options, the six-minute date is worth a try.