It’s Not A Cult, It’s A Movement

by Amy Wu

ON VALENTINE'S DAY night at the DT/UT café on Avenue B in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the usual caffeine fiends could not be found. At 8:30 p.m. they were replaced with a group of people known as Quirkyaloners.

The Quirkyaloners are not a cult, they are a growing group of people across the country who would rather be single and wait for the right person to come along than go out for the sake of being a couple.

The growth has also been spurred by the trend of social networking where the idea is going out to meet cool people and not necessarily to find a date. Other popular social networking organizations include The Lunch Club and Friendster.

And Valentine’s Day is to Quirkyaloners what Bastille Day is to the French. For the thousands of Quirkyaloners across the nation, Valentine’s Day is also International Quirky Alone Day, otherwise known as IQD day.

Danielle Zeolla and Erica Bryan chat it up during International Quirky Alone Day's New York bash. PHOTO: AMY WU

The Quirkyalone movement started with the publication of Sasha Cagen’s book Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics ( HarperCollins, 2003).

Cagen, 30, lives in San Francisco and began the Quirkyalone gatherings soon after the book’s publication. The first Quirkalone parties were held on Valentine’s Day 2003 in San Francisco and New York.

A year later the concept is spreading nationally.

This year Quirkyalone Valentine’s Day bashes were held in a dozen cities including Madison, Wisconsin, Providence, Rhode Island, Seattle, Washington and yes of course San Francisco, the birthplace of the Quirkyalones. Parties have also been thrown in London and as far away as Kabul, Afghanistan.

Quirkyalone parties are not pick-up scenes, and the emphasis is on meeting new friends, party organizers say.

At the second IQD party in New York, the vibe was different than the usual singles scene where people go to consciously find a date.

An array of people, ranging from their mid 20s to mid 40s came. Many had read about the event in Time Out New York, while others had found the information through websites such as www.sheckys.com or on Craigslist, the online classifieds behemoth.

Many of the Quirkyaloners were professionals and included artists, sales people, marketers, computer programmers, and graduate students. The space at the back of the café was cozy; Quirkyaloners sat on the Lifesaver-colored velvet covered Victorian-styled chairs and couches illuminated by funky lamps.

A tiny bar served drinks, TV screens played CNN, and the party’s organizers handed out nametags for the steadily growing crowd.

The nametags included a quiz that included questions such as:

I believe in: (check one), god, martinis, living free and wild. Behind my mask.

I am: (check one) warm and fuzzy, ice clear to the middle, on a spiritual mission, wildly passionate, I am my mask.

I like to hold the hands of: (check one) you, grandmothers, babies, aliens, and no one.

A group of Quirkyaloners packed the “crafts table” that was scattered with construction paper, crayons, glue and other paraphernalia. In another corner a threesome chatted quietly at the “write in” table, where participants jot down random thoughts, poetry, prose on slips of paper.

By 10 p.m. the place was packed with Quirkyaloners, potential Quirkyaloners and the curious.

Lawrence Hecht, a freelance web designer, considered Quirkyalone a part of the social networking movement. Social networking is a hybrid of going online or out for the purpose of meeting new people, which may lead to finding a soul mate or a job.

PHOTO: SALIM MADJD

“People just want to get out to meet people these days,” Hecht said. “This just has a completely different feel than a singles scene.” Hecht like many of the 20somethings and 30somethings at the party is also an avid member of Friendster, the free online social networking community based on the six degrees of separation.

Bill Hoffmann, a senior writer at The New York Post, lives in the West Village and stumbled upon the party because he usually has coffee at the café. “That was fun the other night! I had a great time, I talked to a lot of people,” Hoffmann said in retrospect.

However, other participants said that they still felt that the party wasn’t as Quirkyalone as it should be. Erica Bryan, 33, has read the book and came alone because she wanted to meet new friends.

Ms. Bryan, a black woman who looks a decade younger than her age, said she wished that the crowd were less cliquish.

“I wish there were more ways of forceful interaction and things that require you to mingle and interact,” she said, adding that overall the party was a good way to meet new people.

Quirkyalone parties include activies such as "write-ins." PHOTO: AMY WU

“Honestly this is a new concept for me, it was definitely different than the whole party scene,” she said. “It was refreshing and there’s no pressure to look for somebody, and if you end up meeting a mate out of that it’s a nice bonus.”

Although the next Quirkyalone party in New York has get to be scheduled, organizers said that anyone who it itching for another Quirkyalone bash can download free fliers, and online invites from the website, and throw their own party.

END

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The Lunch Man

How A Computer Geek Went from Having Lunch Alone to Being A Social Networker

Jared Nissim

THE LUNCH CLUB is the remedy for the thousands of New Yorkers tired of eating alone.

Jared Nissim, a technical writer, started the club two years ago simply because he was tired of munching solo.

Nissim lived in the East Village where he worked as a freelance technical writer from home. He often called friends for lunch but they couldn’t always make it, so he even tried slipping notes under the doors of fellow apartment dwellers, asking them if they might be interested in informal lunch gatherings. Finally Nissim posted ad on the activity pals section of Craigslist, a popular online classifieds site, asking if anyone wanted to have lunch.

“I didn’t see my needs met personally, it was entirely selfish in the beginning, I wanted to meet people,” says Nissim. It turned out that many New Yorkers shared his need.

“I just think people want to meet each other. These days people are seeking connection, real genuine relationships,” he added. “It’s a lonely city and people are isolated here.”

The club grew organically and now has hundreds of members. Nissim estimates that more than 6,000 people have been to a club gathering, and, thanks to publicity from the media and exposure on other online sites such as Eventsme.com, about 100 new members join every month.

The gatherings have grown from lunch at The Sidewalk Café in the East Village to lunch, dinner, drinks and activities several times a week all around the city. Activities have included salsa dancing, trips to museums, ice-skating, dart throwing, and pool playing.

Membership is free and the recently revamped site allows members to post profiles and photos. In addition to the events that the club hosts, members can post requests to have gatherings with people in their own neighborhoods. In general, a dozen people show up at the lunches and several dozen show up at the activities or events.

With the club’s growing popularity, Nissim quit his job as a technical writer and made The Lunch Club his life. He makes money by charging extra for special gatherings; for example, a Saturday meal at a restaurant will be $25.

“We build a little cost in for the lunch club and it’s not a lot, but I really feel very strongly about the strong slow organic route,” he says. “I’m not doing this to make millions of dollars.”

The club has served as a refuge for people on major holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day. On Christmas Day, for example, the club held a buffet feast at a Chinese restaurant. Nissim’s next goal is to bring The Lunch Club to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Denver; he will hire local organizers in each city.

Nissim said his true inspiration for the club came from his childhood. He spent his summers at a kibbutz in Israel where his father is from. “It’s a small sustaining community, and the unique thing is that people eat together,” he recalls. “Subconsciously I borrowed that a little and modeled it after it.”

One thing that Nissim is strict about is that The Lunch Club is not for finding dates. Although a number of members have become good friends, and some have found their soul mates through the club, Nissim says that Lunchclubbers are all ages and range from college students to retirees, to singles to married couples; the purpose is to meet cool people and make friends, he says.

Nissim’s job is now to organize the gatherings and serve as a facilitator at them. “I don’t consider it my job, I come to view my life’s work as creating relationships,” he says, as he makes his rounds at a recent gathering, shaking hands and introducing himself. “I sit back and watch things take shape.”

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