Dating Game Is a Matter of Degrees

They certainly don’t look any smarter than any other group of singles-party mate seekers.

The women, well-coiffed and well-dressed, are clutching wineglasses and standing in pairs, waiting to be invited onto the dance floor. The men--the same assortment of middle-aged bachelors you’d find at your neighborhood sports bar--are lining the walls checking them out.

But don’t let appearances fool you. This is one singles party that fancies itself a cut above your typical mixer.

Welcome to Advanced Degrees Singles, the club that proves that being well-educated doesn’t mean you can navigate the courtship maze with any more intelligence than a lab rat.

*

There’s a line at the bar and the dance floor is crowded with couples jostling for space.

It’s one week before Valentine’s Day and Advanced Degrees is holding its “biggest event” in a Macy’s ballroom in Westwood. Over the course of the night, the music has gone from “Disco Inferno” and the Village People to Engelbert Humperdinck’s “After the Loving.”

By 11:30, only a handful of people are left, most of them with partners, sitting close at dimly lit tables or swaying on the dance floor to Frank Sinatra crooning “Fly Me to the Moon.”

For the unattached--especially women--Valentine’s Day can seem like society’s collective effort to spit in your eye. Bombarded by images of starry-eyed lovers, being part of a couple looks like an endless stream of fancy chocolates and lacy lingerie, intimate dinners and long-stemmed roses.

Even the academically polished aren’t immune to the lure of romance.

“I’d say most of our members are looking for a committed relationship, one that’s going to lead to marriage,” says Art Goldstein, the Woodland Hills businessman who has run Advanced Degrees Ltd.--the “educated connection for singles”--for the past 12 years.

His group is one of the oldest singles clubs in California, he said, launched with a series of wine-and-cheese mixers at a Santa Monica Unitarian church almost 20 years ago, before the era of video dating, tele-personals and Dateline ads.

When the group began, Goldstein said, most members were physicians and attorneys--highbrow types who weren’t likely to troll for dates in bars. They sought, instead, a sophisticated setting in which to connect with the opposite sex.

Now, Advanced Degrees includes a broader range of the educational elite--”just about any professional person” can join, Goldstein said, including those admitted without credentials by dint of “life experiences” or business success.

There’s no pecking order among the degreed set, he said. It’s not exactly the revenge of the nerds, where the smart guys get back at the football heroes by snagging the best-looking women.

“We’ve got a lot of heavy hitters--PhDs, nuclear physicists, judges, professors--but once you’re here, you’ve got to get by on your personality, not your degree. I mean, you’ve got to be able to carry on a conversation.”

The group sponsors dances each month, rotating among venues in the Valley, on the Westside and in Orange County. Folks who want to join pay $100 a year to be included in the Advanced Degrees portfolio of personal ads.

Goldstein mans the door at each dance, collecting admission fees and calming the nerves of first-time visitors. “My impression is it’s very hard for people to come to these singles dances,” he said. “Women will come out with a friend, because they find it easier that way. The guys . . . sometimes they want to hang around out front to see who’s going in, but we discourage that. We’re not that kind of club.”

Although Goldstein said the club tries to be restrictive in its membership, its dances are slightly more egalitarian. “People were calling us snobby and all, so at the dances, we started letting people come in with bachelors’ degrees.”

But nobody asks for credentials at the door. One party-goer told me, “They’ll let you in with a sixth-grade education if you can pay the admission.”

*

Plunged suddenly into the singles scene three years ago, I discovered it’s a world unto itself, with a group to suit virtually every interest and inclination.

There are Advanced Degrees Singles, Singles With Bachelors Degrees and, presumably, Singles With No Degrees.

There are Single Dog Lovers and Single Boat Owners; Jewish Singles and Christian Singles and Multicultural Singles; singles groups for tall people and for fat people, for sports lovers and opera lovers.

All this ought to make it simple to find a mate.

Not.

It’s easy to poke fun at, but it’s not so funny if you’re one of the millions of single people who are tired of being alone.

When I was widowed after 17 years of marriage, an Advanced Degrees dance was my first foray into the singles scene since I’d fallen for my husband at a college fraternity mixer.

But my first impression of Advanced Degrees’ “Gala Summer Party” gave me the creeps.

The dance floor was empty, save for a short, fat man with a ponytail and a fringed leather vest, writhing around in what appeared to be a bad imitation of Michael Jackson. His partner--at least I presumed she was, because she was the only other person on the dance floor--was a statuesque blond wearing a tight, white-lace minidress, who I later learned was a bright and charming UCLA librarian.

But the evening got better fast. I encountered two women in the buffet line who seemed to know the ropes, so--after eavesdropping while they gushed about the “tall psychiatrist” who was suddenly back in circulation--I hit them up for advice.

Get a drink and wander around the room, they said. Don’t mind if the guys stare; that’s how they check you out. If you see a man you like, don’t hesitate to ask him to dance. And if someone asks you that you don’t like, don’t be afraid to say no.

I took their advice, and wound up dancing the night away with a tall schoolteacher with a sexy voice and a great sense of humor. And all in all, I had a great time.

Still, there were some things that took a little getting used to. Like those stick-on name tags that are supposed to make it easy to meet other party-goers. It took me the entire night to realize that all those men staring at my chest were merely trying to read my name.

And flirting is a little different from how I remember it from my college days. I know “What’s your sign?” is no longer a hip opening line. But this was the only party I’ve ever been to where a guy hits on you by asking, “Sooooo . . . what kind of degree do you have?”

*

Advanced Degrees will host its next party in Woodland Hills, at the Warner Center Marriott on Valentine’s Day.

For some, it might be hard to say what’s worse--spending the night for lovers unloved, at home and alone, or mingling with people so desperate for love they’re willing to don stick-on name tags and brave dance-floor klutzes.

For Goldstein, it’s an easy call. “Dress up and tell yourself you’re going to come no matter what, even if you have to come by yourself,” he said. “You smile at people, you have some fun. . . . You make some friends, even though you might not meet the love of your life on that particular night.”

Or you might.

After all, it was at a singles dance where Cupid found Art Goldstein 10 years ago. He met his future wife waiting “on line to get into the dance,” he said, “and I liked her right away. But then I’d been going to singles dances for years.

“I never had much luck in bars because I can’t make small talk,” he said. “I’d get a drink, stand around for a while, then go home and have a pizza. At least at these dances, you know everybody’s there for the same reason you are.”

So while it may be tough to strike out alone on Valentine’s Day, “push yourself to get out,” he said. “Get away from the TV set, put down the pizza.

“You’re not going to meet anybody just sitting at home.”