1999 – 2014
Over the years I was running my Roommate Referral Service (1974-2000), people would often suggest to me that, based on my existing model, I should also run a dating service. I never had an interest in such a thing, as dating services had a terrible reputation, and I had a similar record of choosing poor relationship candidates for myself — and I had never had a sense, upon meeting someone, that, “Oh, you’d be perfect for _____.” Ironically, I essentially ended up doing something similar, with my own slant, of course.
In the mid-1990’s I attended an event called The Meeting Group Party, which I thought did a good job of breaking down the barriers between members of the opposite sex who were interested in meeting others to date.
There were perhaps 50 or possibly more people at this event, and the attendees were divided into categories, based on what I considered to be relatively superficial data (my only criticism of the event) – what part of the country there were from, what were their astrological signs, where they’d like to go on vacation, etc.
Attendees were sorted and re-sorted on these differing criteria, so each got to see who popped up in more than one of their groups, and therefore might be a likely candidate to pursue getting to know better – the more things you had in common, the more likely you might be a good match.
While I thought their categories were superficial, I thought it was a great concept, and, when I was looking for another business idea, I contacted the sponsoring organization to see about becoming a franchisee. I never heard from them in response to my inquiry, so, in 1999, I started my own version – The Meeting Game Salon.
My single friends and I all felt the dearth of opportunities to meet potential dating partners – this was pre-Internet, and personal ads were still in the realm of classified newspaper ads; online dating had not yet been invented. Other options included meeting people at bars, but, for those of us who didn’t drink, or at least didn’t pursue it as a recreational activity, that was not a viable option. Dancing, of course has been a time-honored tradition (an option I’d explored personally, as well as professionally, with my dance studio (1976-1996), though by its nature had its own innate challenges in connecting with others. It felt to many of us that there was no-one to date and nowhere to go to meet them.
Personal ads in the two local alternative weekly newspapers in the Bay Area – the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the SF Weekly were quite popular at this time, however – and quite profitable for those newspapers. Singles advertising through them had their personal ad published on the back page of the paper and those who wanted to meet them called a 900 number, owned by the newspaper, to leave a message for the object of their interest. Callers were charged by the minute to respond to the ad. This was so profitable for the paper that singles advertising for dating partners could have their ads published for free.
So, the challenge for the newspapers was to get as many ads as possible. I contacted, first the Bay Guardian, and subsequently the SF Weekly, with a proposition: In exchange for them publishing an advertisement for my singles event, I’d solicit personal ads for their paper from those attending my event. (I offered a $5 rebate off the admission to attendees if they filled out a personal ad for publication at the event.) So, I got prominent free advertising to my target (singles) market, the newspaper got more personal ads from which to generate 900 number, call-by-the-minute revenue, and my event attendees saved $5 off the price of admission. Ba-da-bing!
I chose a calendar date, printed up some flyers and business cards, put up a web page, rented a hall at a local church in San Francisco, arranged for my ad to be published in The Bay Guardian, sent out a mailer to my Avenue Ballroom mailing list, and I was in business.
I recall it was three or four days prior to the first event that I actually sat down to map out what was going to happen at the event. In retrospect, that was a crazy was to approach it, since I had all the other pieces in place – the advertising, space rental, advance tickets sold, etc. But it was just something I knew I could do, and was confident I’d be good at it.
On the night of the event, I’d arranged the chairs in the hall into groups of six, appropriate for the anticipated conversational groupings throughout the evening. My first surprise was that, as people arrived, the first person would take a seat in one of the groups of six chairs; the second person to arrive, however, took a seat in ANOTHER of the groups! The same thing happened with the third person to arrive.
I quickly saw that what people needed was “permission” to sit in a group with an already ensconced attendee, and that what was needed was a maitre ‘d’. As additional attendees arrived, I would take each one by the arm, lead them to one of the groups of chairs, and introduce the new person to the earlier arrival. So, where to sit was out of their control – I essentially told them where to sit, and they “followed instructions.” This took the seating out of their control, and so relieved the choice of whether to sit near someone or to sit in an empty group of chairs.
It was as if you walked into a bar and there was someone sitting down at the end of the bar – you couldn’t go and sit next to them without it feeling intrusive or at least forward. If someone greeted you at the door, however, led you down near the end of the bar, and introduced you to the other patron, it would feel more natural to both parties, and you could more easily and comfortably strike up a conversation.
So I became the maitre ‘d’, filled up each group of six with three or four attendees as they arrived, and soon the room was filled with the sound of everyone chatting away. We had sixty people our first night – ten groups of six. Ba-da-bing!
…
I thought the superficial “affinity” sorts of the event I’d attended were a good starting point, but I wanted the questions, and resulting interactions, to go a little deeper.
I wrote a ‘script’ for each event. I started by dividing people into four groups, based on the part of the country they were from, then provided them with a five-minute activity of which to partake within their (standing) affinity groups so they could get to know a little about some, many, or most in their group – such as, “Find out what state or country they’re from, and how they happened to come to the Bay Area.” Then, I invited them to sit down in groups of six with other member of their affinity group, or other members of another group. So, if there was someone in their affinity group in whom they were interested, they could do their best to make sure to join that person for the next activity.
Once people were seated in their groups of six, I provided them with a topic for a ten-minute conversation – topics ranged such as, “Talk about one good thing that happened to you today; or, if nothing good happened to you today, talk about one good thing that happened to you this week; or, if nothing good happened to you this week, talk about one good thing that happened to you over the course of your life, or something good that you WISHED would’ve happened to you.” Or, “If your group were to start a business together, utilizing the talents of each of the group members, what sort of business would it be? It doesn’t necessarily have to be a business that has ever existed before.” (When we used that topic, just for fun, I had each group report to the room at large, what type of business they had come up with. Always entertaining!)
After the 10-minute group conversation, I’d invite people to gather again in different corners of the room for new affinity groups, such as “People who have children, people who don’t have children and don’t want children, people who want to have children, and people who want to practice having children, but without the children (always the largest group). Once people had gathered in their appropriate corner of the room, I provided them with another activity, such as making a reading list for themselves by interviewing everyone in their group and finding out what they’re reading. Then, we’d sit down in groups of six for another 10-minute conversation; and so on.
This was our eponymous event – The Meeting Game Salon. Our first event was with 60 people in San Francisco. We ran these events monthly for approximately five years, in groups of 100 to sometimes as many as 150 in attendance, in SF, Berkeley, Lafayette, Marin County, and Palo Alto. Their popularity was eventually eclipsed by Speed Dating, which supplanted the salons for the remaining years of our run – an additional ten years, for a total of 15.
In addition to Speed Dating, we expanded our program with hikes, potlucks, talent nights, progressive dinners and brunches (where the men and women were seated alternately by gender, then the men moved around the table, reseated periodically so that everyone could meet over a meal – which was not easy, considering they had to move, on multiple occasions throughout the meal, their entire place setting, entrée, bread plate, silverware, water, and wine glass – but we got it done!).
For the last eight years of our run, I also moderated a weekly dating discussion group – Invincible in Love – the stated intention of which was, “to help us take control of the signals we’re sending to, and better decipher the signals we’re getting from, members of the opposite sex.” (Our most fascinating event.)
At the height of our event schedule, we had a large event – either a salon or Speed Dating, virtually every weekend, somewhere in the Bay Area, and four progressive dinners during the week. We eventually added events for gay men and lesbian women, respectively.
At an average of 100 attendees a week – some weeks were more, some less – over 15 years, an estimated 50,000 attendees (albeit with many repeat visitors) would have frequented one of these events. Early on in the run – when my clients and I were all “young,” I used to receive about two wedding announcements a year from my clients who had met at one of my events. As we aged, the wedding announcements became fewer, but I heard from many others who were regular attendees – and, after disappearing for a year or two, eventually returned to my events – that they had met someone there, had a relationship, and then came back after they broke up.
Just recently, five years after having closed the business, I was having dinner in San Francisco with a friend of mine who had invited two friends of hers – a married couple – to join us. Over dinner, they happened to mention they had met years ago at a social networking event – as it turned out, The Meeting Game Salon.
Eventually, our audience was impacted by the emergence of online dating and the online community, Meetup, (where users could schedule their own events and invite others to attend for free), and I decided that, as they say, “My work here was done,” and closed the business in 2014.
What People Said About The Meeting Game Salon
Invincible in Love
The Meeting Game Salon’s Dating Discussion Group
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