Slide & seek
Millennials are making PowerPoint presentations to help friends land dates
T HESE singles are pitch perfect.
DateMyFriend.ppt takes wingman-ship to a whole new level by letting friends of potential suitors pitch their pals’ attributes to a crowd at a bar — via PowerPoint.
Presenters have three minutes to explain why their friend, who’s sitting beside them, would be a great date.
Questions? Save those for after the presentation, when schmoozing is encouraged.
DateMyFriend.ppt, which started in Boston this year and takes its name from PowerPoint’s file-name format, is coming to New York on Saturday. Thirteen singles will be pitched startup style by their best friends to a crowd at the Well, a Williamsburg watering hole.
“Having a friend do it, you get [to show] a different side of yourself,” Kristen Palasick, 27, who’s being presented by bestie Venus Sanchez, tells The Post. “I don’t know if it would have been the same if I had done it myself.”
She and Sanchez, who are both single, met about a year ago through a mutual friend. After seeing the event on Facebook, they thought DateMyFriend.ppt was the perfect in-person antidote to online dating.
“Dating in New York, there’s a lot of quantity, not a lot of quality,” says Sanchez, who’s 24.
She says it was easy to find reasons to date Palasick, a social-media manager who lives in Park Slope.
“I think it’s more like what little things make up Kristen that make you want to date her,” she says. Since Palasick “stress bakes,” there are always treats around. And she loves to dog-sit, so you’re likely to meet a furry friend if you date her.
Sanchez funneled those attributes into a pie-chart slide, with larger slices demonstrating Palasick’s best selling points.
The biggest slice? Her apartment has an in-unit washer and dryer.
“Huge reason to date me,” Palasick says.
Katherine Paulsen cried when she saw friend David McManus’ presentation about her.
“I just couldn’t believe that this friend of mine clearly spent so much time crafting this piece to represent who I am,” says Paulsen, an actress and video producer. “I was very moved.”
McManus and Paulsen, both 26, met when they were matched on Bumble. There wasn’t a romantic spark, but they struck up a strong friendship. Like Palasick and Sanchez, they were both tired of apps, and intrigued by the event’s in-person strategy.
To make his presentation, McManus, who works on podcasts at the Atlantic magazine, did research on compatibility and asked Paulsen more than 40 questions about herself.
“If she does end up finding her perfect match, then that’s just going to be the ultimate ‘you owe me one,’ ” he says.
Meanwhile, Palasick is bracing herself for the one downside she sees ahead of showtime.
“What if there’s a bunch of gross guys there that I don’t want to date? There’s no ‘left swipe’ in real life.”