Charities Put Bachelors on the Block : Is There Romance After the Bidding?

“Have bachelors, will sell,” has become a popular and profitable personal ad for some charity groups.

In addition to raising tens of thousands of dollars for March of Dimes, Big Brothers and other organizations, bachelor auctions have become another wrinkle in the dating game of the ‘80s.

What happens after such an auction? Does romance follow after a woman has paid for a bachelor and his carefully packaged date? Or does it end in the same way some blind dates do--horribly?

In November, the Orange County chapter of the March of Dimes put 21 eligible men and their date packages on the auction block. More than 700 women showed up at the Hotel Meridien in Newport Beach to buy dates with doctors, lawyers, business executives, a KNBC-TV news anchor and an assortment of young hunks.

Forty-four thousand dollars was raised, the national record for this type of charity event. The dates ranged from nights on the town to a six-day trip to Europe. Successful bids ranged from $300 to $5,975, with a median bachelor price of $1,000.

The following week at a similar March of Dimes event in Long Beach, 25 bachelors were auctioned for $22,000.

Following are reports from some of the women who bought bachelors. The bachelors also have some things to say about the experience.

Mary Forenza, an estate manager, said she was about to turn 40 when she first heard about the Orange County bachelor bid. Figuring that she would rather have a bachelor than a birthday party, she took up a collection for the event.

“I asked all the people that I was going to invite to my party to give me donations for the March of Dimes instead of presents,” she said. Her fund-raising efforts netted $4,000.

Forenza had never met Jim Schroeder, 45, a marketing executive with a firm in Irvine. But, she had heard about his date package to Europe in April. She said that Schroeder was her goal, “but if the guy was a nerd, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

Schroeder got involved without his knowledge when his staff entered him in a newspaper competition.

“They tell me it started out as a joke,” Schroeder said. “Then they sent (the application) in for real.”

To increase his chances of winning, Schroeder said his staff solicited transatlantic plane tickets from TWA and hotel rooms from two elegant hotels: London’s Mayfair and Paris’ Maurice.

When Schroeder learned of the auction, he became a willing participant, but he wasn’t taking chances on the outcome. With six days in Europe ahead of him, Schroeder authorized an employee to bid as much as $4,000 just in case the bidders weren’t to his liking.

Neither he, nor Forenza, anticipated that the bidding would go so high. Recalled Forenza: “All my friends were saying ‘Go for it. Go for it.’ ” The bidding closed at $5,975.

Rather than arrive in London as strangers, Forenza and Schroeder opted for a get-acquainted dinner in December. Although they’re both quick to say that they date others, Forenza and Schroeder have been dating regularly ever since. Schroeder doesn’t use the word love, but he admits to being in “serious like.”

Forenza has since moved from Escondido to Laguna Beach, Schroeder’s home town, “but not just because of him.” Said Forenza: “Being around someone like Jim is exhilarating. He brings so much energy to a relationship.”

“I had no intentions of buying a bachelor at the auction, but my boss insisted,” said interior designer Sherri Morris, 26. When the bidding began, Nila Trider of Newport Interiors, had given Morris a choice: a bachelor or a Christmas bonus, but as a longtime March of Dimes supporter, Trider made her employee aware of which choice she preferred her to make. Morris chose Kevin Bossenmeyer, 31, and an $825 date that began with a gondola ride along Newport Harbor.

“We had the most romantic time any girl could dream of,” she said. “We were on the water in the dark, with silver goblets and champagne. The gondolier played music.”

Morris said she has no regrets about her Christmas bonus, “no way in the world.”

Corroborated Bossenmeyer, a Costa Mesa human resources manager: “I definitely wound up with the best date.”

They are still dating.

Other couples didn’t have such a happy ending. At the Long Beach auction, Nancy Elliott, 40, a fourth-grade teacher from Cerritos, purchased a $950 weekend in Toronto with KRTH 101 radio personality Steve Morris, 30, but wound up taking another man to Canada instead. Between the auction and the date, both parties lost their enthusiasm for one another.

Elliott recalled her conversation with Morris at the auction. “He said ‘I’m going to meet you at the door with a limo, and roses and champagne!’ I was so looking forward to the date.”

She said they spoke once after the auction but when she tried calling him again, “he was always gone,” and the promotions department told her to get to the airport herself, explaining that “Mr. Morris can’t be made to get up that early” and “be on time because we don’t want you to miss the publicity photos.” By that time, Elliott said she felt discounted by Morris and the station.

Morris said that when he agreed to participate in the auction, he never expected to feel pressure from his purchaser. “If she wanted to get to know me, I felt the date itself was enough. If you like each other, 48 hours of pretty steady time together will reveal itself,” he said. “The agreement was not to make a close and lasting relationship for whoever wins the bidding.”

When Morris finally called, Elliott told him that she would just as soon go to Canada with someone else, and Morris said fine. So he arranged for the station to fund Elliott’s weekend without him.

Susan Moss, 41, of Manhattan Beach described her $1,650 date, purchased at the Orange County event, with Newport Beach stockbroker William Cohen, 39, as “Murphy’s Law,” where everything that could go wrong did. Upon arriving at 10 a.m. for her breakfast at Las Brisas restaurant, she discovered that the restaurant opened at 11 a.m., and small-craft warnings precluded her day of sailing. Because of a mix-up, the massage that Cohen arranged came after her beauty appointments, and the masseuse ruined her manicure and rubbed oil into her new hairdo.

After dining at Jimmy’s, the couple arrived at the Beverly Hills Hotel for dancing, but discovered that only the hotel’s dinner guests were welcome to dance there. Moss said that Cohen nearly fell asleep in the limousine home. Said Moss: “I wasn’t looking for love, but I expected to have a fun and lively evening and it wasn’t.”

She added, however, that the cost hadn’t been significant to her, and the whole experience had been worth the price.

Cohen was surprised to hear about Moss’ complaints because he heard from her afterward. But he also expressed disappointment at the outcome of the auction. “Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hallucinated that from the 800 women, somebody like (actress) Rachel Ward would be in the audience bidding for me,” he said.

Twice-auctioned KNBC-TV news anchor John Beard, 38, went for $3,250 at the Orange County March of Dimes auction and $4,100--the night’s highest bid--at the Los Angeles Big Brothers auction in February. He has since gone out with Janet Terry, 29, a flight attendant, model and Balboa Island resident, who paid for him at the March of Dimes auction.

Of the date, Terry said: “Everything was so wonderful.” She hardly nibbled at her dinner at Spago’s but still recalls the enjoyment of “spending time with John, laughing and talking about our similarities in the limousine over a glass of wine.”

Beard said he has already been asked to participate in other auctions. At his office at KNBC-TV studios, he said he was considering them, despite some teasing from his colleagues.

Between Beard’s newscasts, weatherman Fritz Coleman stopped by and remarked: “We call him the love doctor.”

On the stairs, another colleague said: “There he goes: the $4,000 man.”