It is Valentine`s Eve, and there are 300 or so unattached men and women gathered inside a downtown nightclub, wearing ”Hello My Name Is
. . . ” stickers over their hearts. What better place for, as the classified ad put it, some ”exciting flirting mixers” conducted by ”singles authority” Gail Prince?
Sometimes, though, chemistry is not an exact science.
” `What`s your sign?` is such a bad opening line it`s become good,”
according to Prince. So she encourages one group of partiers to try it. They are amused but remain stationary.
Maybe there`s too much confidence tonight on the second floor of Excalibur for this ”Singles Valentine`s Party.” Then again, maybe the music is just too loud.
Or maybe this crowd is unprepared for the methods that have made Prince a noted ”singleologist,” her own word, or in the words of Oprah Winfrey, ”The Dr. Ruth of the Singles World.”
”There`s a lot of things I could do,” Prince says, ”if people were in the right mood.”
Hey, even Cupid doesn`t bat 1.000, which probably helps explain Prince`s popularity, especially this time of year.
All lovelorn heck breaks out for Prince in the days preceding Feb. 14, when some singles get a desperate gleam in their eyes like that of last-minute shoppers around Christmas.
Last Friday, at Cocorico Restaurant on North Clybourn Avenue, she hosted a very successful Party Mix, a ”service-marked” event during which Prince orchestrates male-female interaction and the exchange of business cards. She signed copies of her book, ”The Authoritative Singles Guide to Metropolitan Chicago,” in Water Tower Place on Saturday.
On Sunday, there was a ”flirting workshop” for a Libertyville singles group called Solo and a radio interview from London, which led to a phone call from a British woman suggesting a franchise agreement for Prince`s flirting concepts. On Monday, Prince met with her ”singles support group” in Old Town.
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The success of a singles party is not always readily apparent. Is it measured in the amount of business cards exchanged, or is the number of home phone numbers traded a more meaningful statistic? Is it calculated by the number of new couples who leave together, or the number of relationships that last a few hours?
Might it have been significant, for instance, that Michelle, at one of the information tables in back, reported that all the ”after-sex mints” had disappeared?
Michelle, who works for the Mi-te gift shop in the Loop, also took a large number of orders for T-shirts proclaiming: ”No, Mother, I haven`t met Mr. Right yet but I have met Mr. Cheap, Mr. Rude and Mr. Married.” On the other hand, the edible underwear was not moving quite so briskly.
Prince had her own table, where her two videocassettes-”Flirting: How to Do It Right” ($24.95) and ”Finding Your Loving Partner” ($19.95)-and her book ($6.95) were available. All three products quote Oprah.
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From a discussion near the information tables, an area that seemed conducive to good mixing:
Barry: ”She asked me for a chicken leg and that`s how we met. She gave me her business card.”
Diane: ”He asked for it. I didn`t just give it to him. You asked me, `Is this the end of the line?` ”
Barry: ”You said, `Yes, would you mind if I gave you a kiss?` ”
Diane: ”No, I waited a while.”
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On the Big V itself, Prince rests. Inside her Evanston condo, she details her 16-year odyssey from divorced mother and former grade school teacher to singles authority. First, there was the cold slap of reality: Your friends are all married, everybody thinks you`re a freak, you think your life is over. Life really was just beginning.
After a stint as marketing director for Inside Chicago magazine, during which she moonlighted in flirt workshops and other singles-related work, Prince decided 1 1/2 years ago to pursue singleology full-time. After a slow start, business has picked up.
”I feel like I have a calling,” she says. ”I`m really invested in helping singles. I really want them to feel competent and powerful in their single life.”
She tells about a guy who told her the night before at Excalibur, ”You have made all the difference in my life. If not for you, I`d be in the gutter.”
Actually, she could`ve been working on Valentine`s Day, but instead she was packing for a Maui vacation with her steady boyfriend.
Prince, who says she is ”40-something,” says she no longer is
”marriageable” but she is ”committable”-also her terms. The keys to meeting other people are attitude, body language and being ”approachable,”
she says.
”Look, I`m not the most gorgeous looking woman, but I never had trouble dating,” the singles authority says. ”Never. And I always dated,” she hesitates, ”Not always, but for the most part I dated quality men.”
Singleology has been good to her. Not all singles, though, probably see Valentine`s Week as an approachable experience.
”I would imagine that for many single people it could be a time of reflection and possibly sadness,” Prince says. ”But let me tell you something-the divorce rate, close to 50 percent.
”Eventually,” she adds, ”I`m gonna be getting into couples counseling.”