Give thanks you’re not at a singles dinner

HAPPY Thanksgiving. It may be difficult to have a good one if you’re attending one of the numerous Thanksgiving mixers for single people in the greater Los Angeles area.

Perhaps because Thanksgiving is a more secular holiday than Christmas, society has deemed it necessary for unmarried folk to band together in awkward groups of strangers making stilted conversation over carved meat.

As a survivor of multiple Turkey Day singles mixers, I know not all are festive, the attendees frequently lining up for food wearing expressions identical to the inmates circling the prison cells in “Midnight Express.”

There are two types of Thanksgiving singles get-togethers. There’s the “You’re all alone, far from family, come join other sad sacks to give thanks for your blessing(s)” dinner. And there’s the “Come meet someone so next year you’re not so miserable” dinner. The former frequently serves as a forum for displaced East Coast types to talk about how superior Thanksgiving is away from Los Angeles. Because, after all, back East they have seasons. And in New York they eat real stuffing made from anchovies, cheese, buckshot and lard.

This is frequently followed by a monologue on how we’re soft in L.A., because in New York, Mom strangles the live turkey right in the kitchen.

Then there’s the mixer designed not for camaraderie but for guests to attempt to hook up while chowing down.

And how difficult is it to hook up? You’d think people commiserating over being sans mate on a national holiday would make for easy bonding. However, it’s quite difficult to meet someone, what with pre-meal parades and post-meal football games blaring from the television.

What about meeting someone during the actual meal? There’s something about consuming mass quantities of food to the point of lapsing into nauseated, bloated, tryptophan-induced sweat comas that doesn’t mesh with meeting the love of your life.

Also, leaning back, unbuckling pants and groaning, “Well, I just gained 8 pounds” isn’t always conducive to amour. And I always found it daunting to think that relationships in L.A. often don’t last as long as it took to cook the turkey.

But don’t despair. It’s possible to have fun at a Thanksgiving singles event. How? Don’t even entertain the notion of meeting someone. The point of most is simply to provide a venue so people aren’t alone.

Get into it. Dress like a Pilgrim entirely in black with a puffy Pilgrim shirt, enormous Pilgrim belt buckle, coat with huge silver buttons and a floppy, 17th century Pilgrim bonnet. (All available on Melrose Avenue.)

Sidle up to the hostess and tell her the tofu shaped to look like deceased fowl is very realistic. Reminisce about the Thanksgivings of your youth, omitting any mention of the year your sister, in a pique of anger, outed your brother to two dozen stunned relatives over pumpkin pie.

Will I be attending an L.A. Turkey Day mixer for fun? No. I’d rather be dropped on my head on Plymouth Rock. I gave up on these things about five years ago when I made a token appearance at a friend’s mixer then got out of there faster than Madonna leaving Malawi.

If I’m not invited to spend the day with a family this year, I’ll pack a sack lunch for one and hit the La Brea Tar Pits.

What if you’re still bent on attending a dinner for single people? Good luck. But remember what the day is truly about and at some point stop and give thanks for all the good things in your life, including, of course, that you’re not married.

weekend@latimes.com