Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 20, 1994 TAG: 9412290017
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
If you're a single woman in the Roanoke area and were out last week, these are four of the many men you might have encountered. If you knew where to find them, that is.
Jim and Bob were at a monthly get-together for professional singles last Thursday. (By the way, isn't ``professional singles'' sort of an oxymoron to those of us looking for someone to share our lives? Maybe I've got it mixed up. I guess they're really single professionals.)
Vinny and David were among the hundreds at a Saturday night Rave.
Assuming most of you have some idea of what a cocktail party for professional singles is and are Rave illiterate, I'll boil the Rave down to an all-night dance party you pay to get into.
Both are functions you can go to alone to meet other people.
Jim came all the way from Radford, and Bob drove down from Blacksburg to attend the professional singles thing.
Vinny and David came in for the weekend from a Virginia naval base.
Big city Raves are underground things.
Here's how David explains how they work outside of Roanoke:
``Let's say you figure I'm a ravin' kinda guy,'' he said. ``You'd come to me and ask if I knew about Raves and I'd say, `Go see my friend, Vinny, over at McDonald's.' Then you'd go see Vinny, and if he thought you were cool, he'd give you a flier with the information. To get into the Rave, you'd have to have the flier.''
The professional singles events are sort of like that. A local professional who has probably attended before might invite you or recommend you be added to the invitation list.
Here's the rundown on other aspects of each event:
Average age:
The professional singles? Somewhere around 40.
Rave? 18.
Location:
Singles - The top floor of the very elegant, the very tony Alexander's
Rave - The Iroquois Club. The entire parking lot across the street from the Iroquois. The alley next to the Iroquois. Up and down the sidewalk outside of the Iroquois.
What to wear:
Singles - Men wore suits. Women wore suits.
Rave - Guys wore grunge. Flannel shirts. Dorky wool caps. Surgical/dust masks pulled over their foreheads. Baseball caps. Backward, of course.
Girls wore black midriff tops with jeans zipped down as bare as they dared. Or they dress like infants. Baby-doll dresses, ribbons in their hair and Mary Janes and white anklets on their feet.
(According to David, Merry Go Round is the unofficial outfitter of the Rave crowd.)
Fashion accessories:
Singles - Men, wristwatches. Women, simple gold earrings.
Rave - Neon colored glow sticks. You either put them in your mouth like a cigarette, or you hold them in your fingers so they look like neon brass knuckles. And remember those grade school stars you used to get on your spelling tests? They wear them all over their faces.
What I was most surprised to find:
Singles - Hot hors d'oeuvres!
Rave - A brief whiff of the evil weed, which I was told is totally uncool.
Who I was most surprised to see, but shouldn't have been:
Singles - Roanoke Mayor David Bowers.
Rave - A 6-foot-tall drag queen wearing a pink bathrobe and long blond bouffant hair cascading out of a pink and white polka dotted babuska. (``If he showed up at one of my [hip hop] clubs in New York, my homies woulda parted like the Red Sea,'' commented Vinny, who is from da Bronx.)
Sample conversation:
Singles - Man to woman: ``Look, he handled my divorce 10 years ago and did a damned good job.''
Rave - Guy to girl: ``So, are you committed to this guy or what? I mean, what if the situation were reversed and I was here but was seeing someone else but met you here and wanted to be with you. That wouldn't stop me from wanting to party with you. So is this guy going to stop you from having a good time with me? Or what?''
Something I learned:
Singles - Don't call them divorced. Richard insists they're ``recycled.''
Rave - According to David, the ``bitter jonk'' is rave lingo for anything that is really good. I'll use it in a sentence: ``Man, that Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream is some really bitter jonk.''
What you have with you to ward off social awkwardness:
Singles - What else? A drink.
Rave - Uh, a baby's pacifier. Or a lollipop.
What you need to fit in:
Singles - A career.
Rave - Energy.
But you wouldn't fit in if you had:
Singles - Energy.
Rave - A career.
What they were drinking:
Singles - White wine. Out of glasses. Molson. Out of the bottle.
Rave - Beer. Right out of the pitcher. But only if you were over 21. Water, if you were younger.
If you walked into the middle of the room you found:
Singles - Food. Sensationally arranged on a table with an elegant floral centerpiece.
Rave - Mayhem on the dance floor.
It smelled like:
Singles - Tasteful amounts of aftershave, cologne and perfume.
Rave - A smokers' rights convention.
The best part was:
Singles - None of that ``oh, dear ... nobody's asking me to dance'' feeling. No music. No dance floor.
Rave - None of that ``oh, dear ... nobody's asking me to dance'' feeling. You wanna dance? Just jump on the dance floor and do it.
Sweetest things I heard:
Singles - Jim: ``I read a book Ann Landers wrote on how to meet people ...''
Rave - Vinny: ``It's OK, I handle rejection really well.''
Who made me laugh:
Singles - Bob. After whining that the only reason anyone seemed to want to talk to me was to criticize the newspaper, Bob noted, ``Well, at least you're meeting guys who can read.''
Rave - A guy who fell asleep with his head on the bar and briefly woke up when I asked for a glass of water.
``Where are you from?'' I asked.
``Atlanta,'' he slurred.
``What brings you to Roanoke?'' I asked.
``Polar,'' he said, as if this had some deep meaning, before dozing off again.
What I couldn't wait to do when I got home:
Singles - Take off my pantyhose.
Rave - Take a shower and air out my clothing.
Which one was more fun?
Well. Neither one was my scene, but how can ``professional singles'' beat out something called a ``Rave''?
The Rave was the bitter jonk ... man, er, dude.
by CNB