Dialing Into Romance : ‘Drive Me Wild’ Sells Amorous Connections to Rush-Hour Romeos
Men seemingly will try anything to make a date with Simi Valley sisters Brenda Allen and Babette Gilbert.
Even solicitation on the freeway.
“Just the other day, a gentleman driving along beside me held up a bottle of wine,” said Allen, 25, a former L.A. Playboy Club bunny who now works for a talent agency in Beverly Hills. “He pulled up next to me and wanted to know if I wanted to have a glass of wine with him. I told him I was married.”
For Gilbert, 23, a part-time model who works for a Beverly Hills public relations firm, such run-ins with roadway Romeos are even more common.
“I was driving one day, and I see this guy in my rear-view mirror, weaving in and out of traffic, waving madly,” said Gilbert, who is single. “I’m thinking, ‘What is this guy doing?’ He gets up next to me and he says, ‘Pull over, pull over!’
“Finally, he pulls up next to me on the off-ramp and yells out the window, ‘I want you to know that you’re absolutely gorgeous.’ You know, The Line. “
Pick-Ups From Pickups
Ah, yes, The Line. Both had heard countless variations in their club scene days. And now they were hearing pick-up lines from guys in pickup trucks. About the only thing worse than hanging out in bars, they concluded, was hanging out on freeways.
With no avoiding the snail-paced morning commute, the notion of making a love connection while stuck in gridlock suddenly became the ignition key to private enterprise for the business-minded pair.
Said Allen: “We figured there has to be something here.”
And there is. Welcome to the Department of Motor Dating, where there are no long lines for a license to romance, no paper work headaches and no short-tempered window clerks--only Brenda and Babette, two self-proclaimed “semi-attractive” partners in a financial endeavor that admittedly is about as yuppie an idea as they come.
Billed as “the newest way to meet quality single people,” Drive Me Wild is a commuter computer dating service targeted toward the lonely driver looking for love on the southbound 405.
Pink Bumper Stickers
For a one-year fee of $50, members receive a fluorescent pink bumper sticker with a personal identification number. Simply spot an interesting face amid the flow of traffic, jot down his or her number, phone the Drive Me Wild hot line and leave it to the matchmaking sisters to arrange a meeting. (The sisters will release members’ data sheets to any other member who asks.)
“Haven’t you ever seen someone while you were driving that you wanted to meet?” Allen asked. “How would you ever see them again if you didn’t make that one move? There are so many people out there. We just want to make their initial connection and from there they can go with it.”
Anna Londono and Bill Snyder have been going together for 2 1/2 months since they exchanged a wave--and identification numbers--on the San Diego Freeway. She was returning home to Granada Hills from cosmetology school. He was en route in his job as a plumber.
“I kind of looked over and vice versa,” said Londono, 25, who joined Drive Me Wild at the suggestion of a friend. “I was a little bit surprised, to be very honest. I mean, you just don’t expect it to work.”
Snyder, 25, of Reseda, who is recently divorced, had planned to contact her.
“But she beat me to it,” he said. “She was driving a little Suzuki Samurai. We saw each other and kind of waved. I had never been in a dating service. I just wanted to, you know, meet someone.”
The idea seems to be catching. Membership, which has climbed steadily since the service began in March, has grown to more than 600 (60% are men, the sisters say). Tracey Hodges, 21, a member who commutes daily from Simi Valley to her job at a bank in Westwood, says she spots a Drive Me Wild sticker almost every day. And she twice has been spotted by inquiring members.
“One of them seemed interesting, the other didn’t,” she said. “One was kind of an older guy. The other I haven’t gotten back to yet. But I have an idea who the person I want to meet is.”
As a carpenter, James Welch, 28, of Simi Valley finds himself on the road throughout the day. He hasn’t seen many stickers, nor has he made a date since he joined Drive Me Wild in April. But he’s tired of the flirtation games he encounters in bars, and he says the service puts him in the driver’s seat.
“If you see someone who looks good, you can check them out and learn more about them without all this small talk and projecting a facade,” he said. “It cuts through and saves time.”
In the interest of compiling a clientele of “quality singles,” Allen and Gilbert personally screen each applicant. Would-be members are asked to provide a variety of information ranging from their annual income to whether they have been tested for AIDS. They are also asked to rate their appearance on a scale of one to 10.
“We get mostly sevens and eights,” Allen said. “We don’t have anybody below a four.”
Applicants may decline to answer any questions. But they must sign a waiver absolving Drive Me Wild of legal responsibility should they be the cause of an accident while sticker-searching. They must also provide three character references and must have no record of felony convictions.
Such membership requirements are typical of many computer dating services, according to Randy Mendelsohn, owner of Foto Date in Tarzana, which charges $399 for a one-year membership. Most computer services, Mendelsohn said, charge less than $300 per year. Video dating services, however, range from $1,500 to “several thousands” of dollars.
“It depends on what the actual service involves,” Mendelsohn said. “If it’s only a list of single people, it could be $10 a year. But if you take a picture within the service and take time to compile data on that person that other members can use to evaluate that person, it costs a lot more.”
No Guarantee
Of course, the Drive Me Wild membership fee does not buy a guarantee. Members are basically limited to meeting people who travel the same route at the same time. And while the sisters say membership is growing, it is still is a minuscule percentage of the estimated 8.5 million and 637,400 who live in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, respectively.
Not only is there little chance of sighting another member, what if that person simply doesn’t, well, drive you wild?
“We don’t guarantee that they’re going to have 10 dates in a month, and we don’t guarantee that they’re going to have one date in a year,” Allen said. “But if you pursue it, it will work for you.”
Both point out that the freeway dating game can also be played outside the confines of commuting. The service offers happy-hour parties at restaurants to promote socializing among members. T-shirts and memberships are given away.
Nonetheless, Drive Me Wild has responded to only about 75 matchmaking requests. Profits are still about $5,000 short of meeting start-up costs of about $28,000.
Still, the sisters are undaunted.
“I don’t think any new business operates in the black right away,” Allen said. “But once it takes off, I think we won’t have to depend on word of mouth.”
Exposure from local media has helped. Allen and Gilbert have been guests on several local radio stations and they have also been interviewed by such television programs as “A Current Affair” and “Eye on L.A.,” although neither program has yet aired.
Tabloid Exposure
The Globe national tabloid also recently featured a story on commuter dating and Drive Me Wild.
“We’ve had nothing but positive feedback,” Allen said. “The only negative situation we’ve run into was when we did an interview for a Ventura radio station. A lady called in and thought that she would call us Bimbo and Bimbette. She didn’t realize that both of us have thought this out to its fullest extent.”
The pair have begun to research the demographics of Phoenix, San Diego and Seattle, as well as areas of the East Coast. They also recently traveled to New York, where they again were guests at a local radio station.
Expansion into other cities might be far down the road, but the matchmaking sisters are committed to slinging their arrows nationwide. A Drive Me Wild marriage is a more immediate--and realistic--goal.
“We want to find out if any of our members get married because we would like to throw them a big party,” Allen said. “I would consider that quite an accomplishment. Sort of like a love connection.”