Thanks to everyone who posted comments and sent e-mails regarding Monday's blog. Your feedback helps fuel future blog topics, so keep it coming.
To respond to one poster’s query, “Where’s the best place to meet guys?”: I’m of the school of thought that the women follow the men, so where there are men, there are hordes and hordes of women. After all, finding places where the guys outnumber the gals is tough in this city. Club owners, however, bank on the men following the women: They let in at least four girls to every guy and turn away large groups of men, especially if those men show up sans ladies. “If you have the girls, the guys will follow,” one nightlife executive tells me. “The owners and promoters want to have a great-looking crowd of women, so if you get a bar or club that is notorious for having a majority of women, you will find that it will be very busy with a nice mix of women and men.”
It's been six months since I started writing Last Girl Standing, Chicago magazine's blog about nightlife and dating. While I consider myself somewhat of an expert—thanks to plenty of trial-by-error experience—I’d like to hear other people's perspectives as well. That's where you come in.
What obstacles do you face in the often-brutal world of dating? Are you hungry for more behind-the-scenes nightlife coverage? Itching for more celebrity gossip? Got a tip you’d like to share? Post in the comment field below and let me know. If you’ve got a dating dilemma you don’t want to air publicly, e-mail me directly at nightspotting@hotmail.com, and I’ll keep it anonymous, unless you give me permission otherwise.
Tuesday’s blog seemed to strike a chord with some readers. "Why do you hold so firmly to the belief that single 32-year-olds have a hang-up or two?" one poster queried. Another asked, "What's so bad about 'settling' at this point in the game?"
As cited in a previous post, 51 percent of American women are single now, so mine may be the generation that continues slashing the divorce rate—which is the lowest it’s been since 1970, according to a recent AP article—by not settling.
Thursday night I attended Avenue M's one-year anniversary party, and by the time my friend and I arrived around 8 p.m., there was already a line spilling out the door. We decided to forego the free drinks (which ended at 9 p.m., anyway) and stop by nearby De Lux, a clean, comfortable, no-frills corner bar owned by Gen Furla (I love women bar owners), who used to helm the now-shuttered Parkway Tavern on Fullerton.
Chicago feels like such a small city sometimes: When we walked in, we bumped into The Husbands—the male half of The Marrieds—with whom I've been friends for years; I’ve known some of them since long before they met their wives. They were having a guys' night out at their usual Thursday hang, drinking man drinks, eating spicy chicken wings, and watching whatever game was on the flat-screen TVs. It wasn't long before two of The Husbands (one of whom is actually a fiancé for another month or so) started digging into my dating life. That's always fun.
Marky Ramone, longtime drummer of The Ramones, was slated to play a set Wednesday night alongside DJ Skribble for a private party at Manor (343 W. Erie St.). "We rented the drum set for him," Manor co-owner Mike Bisbee told me, nodding toward the Yamaha kit resting near one of the lounge’s corner VIP booths, "but he wouldn't play."
That's because the twosome didn't have much time to practice, what with Skribble's wife having a C-section the day before—not that it kept the DJ from coming to town for the gig. Priorities! (According to his MySpace page, Marky insists on Pork Pie-brand drums for all of his U.S. shows. Maybe that was the real problem.)
Last Thursday evening, I attended an event at Spiaggia hosted by designer Todd Oldham; Spiaggia’s James Beard-winning chef-partner, Tony Mantuano; and restaurateur Larry Levy. The trio had gathered, along with about 350 tastemakers, to toast—remotely—their new effort, the Fairfax Hotel on Miami’s South Beach, which will house the first expansion of Spiaggia in the restaurant’s 23-year history, Enoteca Spiaggia.
There comes a time in every party girl's life when getting all dolled up for restaurant and bar openings, charity fundraisers, and B-list-celeb-studded parties gets a little, well, stale. Some nights I'd rather watch the Grey's Anatomy finale (tonight!) than attend another overcrowded, over-Botoxed event, where the weightiest conversation topic is Paris Hilton’s jail time. (The horror!)
And other nights, it’s just a matter of choosing wisely. Last Friday, instead of going to Madhatter's Ball for the sixth year in a row—and pretending not to be annoyed with David Schwimmer for his self-importance—I attended the opening of Crescendo (222 W. Ontario St.), the new bar in the old L8 space from the people who brought us Reserve (one of whom, Tony Demasi, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently accused of fraud). Despite the fact that the bar was barely ready to open when the party started—quite literally, we watched the paint dry—the guys managed to pull off the most creative opening I've seen in the 11 years I've been covering this crazy business. That's right; I said it: The most creative opening I've seen yet.
As soon as there are two warm days to rub together, big events and bar openings start popping up like tank tops—so much so that one’s schedule can require the occasional double booking.
Take last week. Thursday I attended One Hot Night, the Today's Chicago Woman event featuring the magazine’s 25 hottest bachelors, at the River East Arts Center. I repeat: 25 hot bachelors—well, except for a few no-shows, like the Bulls' Chris Duhon, who was too busy losing to the Pistons to attend the party. How could that be bad? (If you missed the bash, don’t fret. Summer Lovin’, Chicago’s annual singles event co-sponsored by The Auxiliary Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, takes over the MCA on Friday, June 29th. Tickets are available now.)
It started with my college beau: Before we began our tumultuous
five-year relationship, we were friends first. It made dating easy,
because we shared a group of friends, but it also made breaking up
(like, 29 times) brutal, because we shared a group of friends. Once the
relationship was finally, finally over, he became my ghost of
relationships past. I kept comparing other guys to him and defaulting
back to him whenever I was in a rut—which was easy to do since we
remained friends and didn’t completely sever our romantic ties in the
six or so years following college.
I've always had a hard time letting go—you know, leaving the
friendship behind when the relationship goes south, since, typically,
friendship was the root of the relationship in the first place. To this
day, I count almost every ex-boyfriend and fling as a friend,
regardless of who did the dumping.
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