Match maker
ANN HARRELL, 30, lives in Boston's North End and is founder of the Boston Young Professionals Association, a networking and social group.
''Boston is not dating-friendly. That's why organizations like mine flourish. I started it a year ago, and I have 7,000 members. We do singles dinners, lock-and-key parties, and marathon dating. Lock-and-key parties are where the ladies get the locks and the gentlemen get the keys and you walk around trying to see who matches who. It's an icebreaker. Marathon dating starts out like an eighth-grade dance. All the men are on one side, all the ladies on the other. They face each other and talk. Every five minutes, the music stops and the men move down one person. So you talk to someone different every five minutes. If you do this for an hour, you meet 12 people.
''We do Red Sox games, Bruins, Celtics, wine-tastings, charity events, seminars on how to buy a house, financial planning, and having a polished business image. We do table-hopping, where you go for a three-course meal and you're seated with six or eight others. You all change tables at each course, and in between courses, you go to the bar and mingle with everyone.
''The dating scene is difficult for women, and I hear from guys they think it's difficult, too. It's New England and people don't talk to each other. I think professional guys here are afraid to approach women in a bar. The ones who do are players, and most women aren't interested in that. I moved here from Washington, D.C. When I went into a bar by myself there, I'd be talked to by five or six guys. Here, it just does not happen. If you talk to someone you don't know, people think you're crazy.
''In D.C., people are more friendly. Women are more approachable. Men are more confident and polite. I'm a Southern girl, and in the South, you can be smart and 'ditzy,' and it's accepted. Here, if you're not intelligent 100 percent of the time you're not good enough. . . . You have to be smart and beautiful. Everyone has extremely high standards. Women are expected to be businesslike, ambitious, and successful. Women's expectations are high, too. There's a lot of talk about all the best men being married or gay.
''Online dating is huge in Boston. I've had friends do online dating and speed dating, and whatever there is to be doing, they've done it. I don't think online dating works. There's a stigma to it. It's like the personals. You don't want anyone to know you're doing it. A great way to meet guys is to meet girls first. They have guy friends, and they hook you up. Word of mouth, being set up, is still the best way.
''Another way to meet people is single weekends. I took myself and a board member to one, and now she has a boyfriend. Neighborhoods are important, too. I have just moved to the North End, and there's a real community here. People walk down the street and say hi, the bartenders know me. I met a girl in a bar and I said, 'Something exciting has to happen soon or I'm leaving.' Just then, three cute guys walked in. They came and sat down with us. We exchanged numbers, and we plan to go out."
