Seeing the value in blind dating

Lisa Newman

Thursday, Feb. 12, 1998 | 9:36 a.m.

Valentine's Day is around the corner and once again, millions of Americans will either look forward to chocolate and flowers -- or shrug off the consumerism and the hype like a bad virus.

Even if you say you don't care about Valentine's Day, it's hard, if you're single, to get through this very American event without feeling sober about your state of affairs, or lack of them.

"It's a cruel joke in this country that anyone without a date on New Year's Eve then has a mere six weeks before they are reminded that they will go dateless again on Valentine's Day," says my friend RJ, a documentary filmmaker. As of this writing, he has no plans for Feb. 14.

The real problem -- agrees RJ and many of the single people I know, and perhaps you can find some sympathy for them -- is that happily married friends and family rarely take any responsibility anymore for the plight of single people. This is a time of decline for the traditional blind date.

"It's a sad state of affairs," Miss Manners, the popular advice columnist, says with a sigh during an interview from her home in Washington, D.C. Judith Martin -- the name behind the column -- says the art of delicately matching up single people has, in recent years, been lost as we neglect our neighbors and family to spend more time at the office, on the Internet and just plain alone.

Blind dates aren't the best way to meet someone, necessarily. But it's better than judging someone by looks alone from across a crowded room. When you're set up, you're forced to sit across from a stranger and talk to the person for at least an hour, if you've got manners. In an hour, you can find out if your at-first-glance impression unveils an interesting, infinitely more attractive and good-hearted soul, or a basic bore.

In most busy towns across the country, our friends aren't throwing dinner parties -- the truly great way to throw people together. Sadly, singles today take their careers more seriously than their future progeny. Hardly anyone -- married or single -- places much of a priority on a personal life, and in that regard, there's no doubt that we singles bear some of the responsibility for our predicament.

My limited experiences with blind dating have revealed some '90s moments. Last year, a colleague set me up with a guy described as "exceedingly handsome and impeccably dressed for a bureaucrat." He wedged me between a 5 p.m. social gathering and a 7:15 p.m. political event -- giving us about 45 minutes. I thought this as odd as it was amusing. My friend RJ calls this type of dating the "Slide By," a version of the "Drive By." In this case, the parties check each other out -- but in a "Slide By," no one gets hurt. The government guy never called back.

In another case, a friend offered up a journalist more than 10 years my senior. At first I demurred because of the age difference. But soon after, I began to more closely follow his career as he covered wars and diplomatic skirmishes, and over time I felt strangely connected to him when he got a scoop. For months -- actually it was for about a year -- I reminded my friend that, indeed, it was OK to set us up when he dropped into town. About the time she got around to inquiring about his status, she got an invitation to his wedding. True story.

Measuring the decline of the blind date is no simple task. The setup was always a discreet affair, but signs of the demise of this private gesture are evident everywhere. This being America, it was only a matter of time before the art of getting singles together would become big business.

Like a lot of things in America, Miss Manners says with some sadness, "blind dating is being professionalized." Miss Manners calls this system "not only embarrassing... but unattractive."

The personal ads are the most impersonal way imaginable of finding a soulmate, but their phenomenal growth in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet testify to a waiting niche. Matchmaking services have also boomed. Open up the classified ads. There are college-educated matches, exclusive pairing for Christians, Jewish singles services -- just name your type and place the impersonal phone call.

It's Just Lunch, a dating service for yuppies that pairs busy professionals for lunch, dinner or drinks on the premise that career-risers often neglect their social life, has practically trampled the competition. Started by a Chicago woman who broke off her engagement a month before the wedding, It's Just Lunch is now an $8 million operation and has plans to expand to 50 U.S. offices and open branches in Paris and London soon.

"Your friends can only know so many people," Nancy Kirsch, 41, says. She's a vice president of It's Just Lunch. Today, she adds, "people spend so much time in their offices, on airplanes .... and in cyberspace. All the conventional places to meet aren't around anymore." Kirsch is a big believer in matchmaking. She met her husband on a traditional not-for-pay blind date outside of work.

Aside from paying for romance, how does one go about finding it? It's never been easy to find a mate, and, let's be honest, it's not really trendy to be open about dating. Around Valentine's Day, we hide it even more.

It used to be we met other singles at religious services, but most urban professionals no longer attend church or synagogue regularly. Inter-marriage between faiths, as well as inter-marriage between the races, is less of an issue than just a few years ago.

I hail from the South Side of Chicago, where my friends were as diverse as anywhere I've ever resided. In all my years growing up, I never gave much thought to inter-marriage, at least not personally. In my adult years, I always wanted to believe in True Love. And though I can't describe it precisely, I think I know how it makes me feel. So let me end here with such a story, though you won't recognize it immediately.

Many years ago, in another life, I had a fiance. In the years that this man and I dated, he had a friend named J.P. Day after day, J.P. worked hard on his doctorate, and acted like not having a woman in his life year after year was OK. After about four years of this, I got tired of his denials. I set him up with a woman named Mari, though I denied that I was doing it. He fell in love, and fell hard.

Perfume, flowers -- he smothered the poor woman. She dumped him, he gained 50 pounds, and then he went on to a distinguished position as an economist at a top university.

(You'd think it was over and that my romantic meddling was somehow misguided? Keep reading.)

Two years went by. J.P. held onto a plant she had given him -- and it stayed on his window sill long after it shriveled up and died. She did give him reason to hope during all that time -- occasional cards and phone calls. Then one day Mari stopped by -- and somehow, while visiting J.P., she arranged for her car to be towed. Conveniently, she then spent the night at his place.

Within nine months she was wearing a ring. They later got married in Ireland -- where they both have relatives. They are just about the happiest couple I'm acquainted with. The point is, it took me less than five minutes to make the phone calls that brought the two of them together. You might try it sometime.

Wait until after Valentine's Day.

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