'What? You say dodging cars in Georgetown at 2:00 a.m. while suffering through those catcalls is fun?
"You think trying to wrangle an invitation to an embassy function is an original idea and that those shindigs aren't meat markets?
"You actually enjoy trying to meet your ideal mate at Bally's or the 'Social Safeway'?"
www.singlevolunteers.org
For Dana Kressierer and Catharine Robertson, the answer to all of the above was a definite "No." As single women newly arrived in the Washington area, they knew there had to be better ways to meet single, eligible men.
So driving back from a ski trip in January 1997, the two discussed an idea Kressierer had read about. Somewhere in Vermont, singles were getting together to do volunteer work as a way to meet one another and at the same time help their community. A sort of do-good dating service.
Could that work here? they wondered.
Eighteen months later, the answer is in: Even better than they imagined.
Single Volunteers of D.C. -- headquartered on the Internet -- now has an electronic mailing list of 750 single men and women in the Washington area who volunteer for projects -- sponsored by local nonprofit groups -- as a way to meet new people in a more relaxed and informal atmosphere than a bar or supermarket produce counter.
"We thought there were other people out there like us who were moaning about ways to meet people," said Robertson, 28, a Web designer and editor at the District-based American Psychological Association.
"It's a bit strange being a twenty-something single person in D.C., because in D.C., you are what you do," the District resident added. Most of the usual ways of meeting potential dating partners, she said, "are very trite."
Most of the projects SVDC volunteers tackle are in the District. The projects have included Rock Creek Park cleanups, landscaping at the National Zoo, home-building with Habitat for Humanity, a children's Christmas party at the Center for Creative Non-Violence, answering phones at charity telethons, staffing blood drives and sorting food at the Capital Area Community Food Bank in Northeast Washington.
Other volunteer projects have included one in Springfield to refurbish bicycles rescued from landfills to be sent to poor countries and one in Alexandria in which the singles serve as ushers at concerts.
"They do good work and are a nice bunch of people," said Mark Agee, Capital Area Community Food Bank volunteer coordinator. "They've made a commitment to come once a month, which is outstanding."
"The goal is not just volunteerism. The goal is to meet other singles through volunteerism," said Kressierer, a 28-year-old College Park resident who is the volunteer group's mainstay as its Web site master.
Singles log on to the site, where they can see upcoming projects, sign up for ones that interest them and get on SVDC's electronic mailing list for alerts to future events. Advance sign-ups allow Kressierer and her volunteer assistants to intervene so that each group stays evenly divided between men and women as much as possible, she said. If a project is attracting too many women, "I send a message to the mailing list saying, 'Full for women. Need four more men,' " she said.
Many people are attracted to the idea because they figure they will meet like-minded people, Kressierer said. "Total losers don't volunteer to get a date," she noted. "The stereotypical barfly is not one to go out and do landscaping at the National Zoo."
Also, "it's just so much more relaxing than going out to bars. There's absolutely no meat market aspect," added Kressierer, a software quality control officer for a Rockville firm that develops computerized medical simulations for teaching purposes. "You're working in a group of anywhere from 10 to 60 people, and you'll find someone to talk to."
To be eligible, a person must be single, that is, not married or in a committed relationship; willing to show up at the project site (with the necessary tools, if required) and willing to work the assigned time of the project (usually three to four hours). There is no fee for participating, and Kressierer said she makes no money from maintaining the Web site and organizing projects.
Initially, she contacted local nonprofit groups and offered to organize groups of volunteers for projects they designated. Now, "I rarely have to make calls. They hear about us, they call me or e-mail me, and we set up a project," Kressierer said.
The Web site also lists socials that involve no volunteering -- such as the Anti-Valentine's Day Night, which SVDC held at a Bethesda comedy club, and the regular meetings at Chi Cha Lounge in Northwest Washington after the group's twice-a-month volunteer work at Food & Friends Inc., a District nonprofit providing daily meal delivery to people homebound with AIDS.
On other occasions, volunteers decide on their own to go from their project site to a nearby bar or restaurant.
Kressierer said that the Web site attracts people from 20 to 40 years old and that most volunteers are in their thirties. Sometimes she designates projects for people over 40, and if enough interest were expressed, projects also could be listed on the Web site for gay men and lesbians. About 60 percent to 70 percent of the volunteers are white and the rest Asian and African American, she added.
Healey Hartnett, 27, who works for a Northwest Washington communications firm, found SVDC on the Internet while searching for a volunteer group. "My first impression was that it sounded very cheesy . . . I was looking for the volunteer aspect of it. But I figured, 'Whatever.' You can't help but want to meet new people."
A few weeks later, she met David Hunter while cleaning up Congressional Cemetery with other SVDC volunteers, and they are now dating. "It was a romp," Hartnett said of the project. "We had to take down trees. We had chain saws. It was a lot of fun."
Hunter, 31, who works at the Foreign Press Center, run by the U.S. Information Agency at the National Press Building, arrived in Washington in 1992. He said he did not join SVDC "for the singleness part. It was to get me out of the house and doing things on a volunteer basis. To get me involved in the community in Washington."
Several volunteers said that apart from meeting potential dates, SVDC has widened their social circles and allowed them to feel they are doing something productive.
"If you never meet anyone you want to date, you still did something worthwhile; you've used your time in a productive way," said volunteer Melissa Edeburn, a writer-editor for a District nonprofit group. She joined SVDC in January and is its project coordinator with Habitat for Humanity.
Edeburn also said she has found SVDC volunteers to be "a very generous group." In recent weeks, they helped her raise more than $500 for the Leukemia Society, which sponsored a fund-raising marathon in which Edeburn participated.
Kressierer, who said SVDC "has given me more of a social life," keeps in touch with similar groups that have grown up in at least six other cities across the country. "I can safely say we are the most active chapter in the nation," she said.
Other measures of SVDC's success include co-founder Robertson's recent decision to move to Upstate New York to join a man she met through the group. And then there is Kellie Larkin, a 26-year-old legislative aide for Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.) and a friend of both Kressierer and Robertson.
As they launched SVDC, "I was the naysayer. I said, 'It sounds like you're going to do a lot of work, and it's not going to happen,' " Larkin recalled.
But in recent months, she has joined the group and has helped run "very competitive" bingo games at a senior citizens facility in the District.
As for her initial "predictions of doom and gloom," she said, "I've been forced to eat those words."