‘Weed Dating’ Is the Biggest Conceptual Letdown You May Ever Read About

The phrase “weed dating” probably strikes a particular chord in your lexicon — the chord that wants to get stoned and go to a fondue restaurant with a particularly good conversationalist. Or go sit in your local aquarium’s IMAX theater and watch the latest iteration of a 45-minute movie about the bottom of the ocean. Whatever — no judgment. The chord it probably doesn’t strike is the one that you avoid plucking at all costs, i.e. the one that yearns to do field labor. That, however, is exactly what weed dating, as far as the Earthly Delights Farm in northwest Boise is concerned, is all about.

CBS News has heard tell of a place in Idaho that has cleverly convinced lonely singles that they might meet their One True Love by giving the Earthly Delights Farm a few hours of free labor. Weed dating is sort of like regular speed dating, except that instead of drinking booze, participants pull weeds out of the ground, hoping to rub shoulders with a charismatic someone. 33-year-old Casey O’Leary, who owns the Earthly Delights Farm, first heard about the weed dating concept from a farm in Vermont (farms in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio have also organized their own versions of weed-dating events). In a place like Boise, where the bar scene might be less than vibrant, weed dating offers singles the opportunity to meet in a no-pressure situation and contend only with the banjo-thrum of cicadas for conversation.

At the Earthly Delights Farm, women are assigned to specific rows, and given instructions not to accidentally/on purpose pull out any of the vegetables (Earthly Delights is a working farm). O’Leary orchestrates the proceedings, giving people pointers and trying her best to encourage the most sensible matches. She says she derives satisfaction from helping people, although, in what may be a gross understatement, she admits that she likes to watch people weeding her farm.

Those weed-daters too shy to just proffer their dirty hands to an attractive stranger were provided with numbered mason jars in which to deposit a note for whichever corresponding person they were eyeing from across the fields. Participants seemed to thoroughly enjoy, or at least appreciate the novelty of the experience, blissfully wrenching their backs as O’Leary looked on, probably chewing on a blade of grass and thinking, “Too easy.”