Tweaking Girls' Night

FINDING a new mate has not been easy for Alma Cardenas, 42, a computer engineer from Nesconset who was married for seven years before her divorce five years ago. Since her most recent romantic relationship broke up last summer, Ms. Cardenas said, she had been to five events for singles and was lucky to get a guy's phone number - or be asked for her own - at one of them.

 

Maxine Hicks for The New York Times

Jay Rosensweig, founder of singles dating company, also plans mixers where women seeking potential friends and activity partners can meet other women.

 

But it is not just men Ms. Cardenas is pining to meet. She is also looking for female friends.

"The hardest thing is to establish a circle of friends, a circle of single people," Ms. Cardenas said. "The idea of having a fun time for myself and meeting single women is very attractive. It takes away the scariness of doing the single thing, and puts a fun element in it."

As the friends they have known from young adulthood commit to relationships, marry and have children, single women in their 30's, 40's and 50's, especially in the suburbs, often find themselves out of the loop. Tagging along with couples becomes awkward, and the common ground of shared experience dwindles. The single friend may feel stuck in a rerun of "Sex and the City" while the married friend has moved on to the Wisteria Lane of "Desperate Housewives."

"If I want to spend time with my friends, I have to go to my friends' kid's parties," Ms. Cardenas said. "Sometimes it's fun, but it's a drag. It's a reminder that I'm single."

The gulf can seem widest for those who have never married, like Jill Hughes, a 42-year-old chiropractor from Rocky Point who is still looking for Mr. Right.

"A lot of women my age are married or have kids," Dr. Hughes said. "They are just on a different path in their lives. They are not interested in going out or doing anything with the singles scene. I am still looking to go out, to meet men."

Evidently, that "last one without a ring" feeling isn't just a social phenomenon, it's also a marketing opportunity - the one behind the latest twist in matchmaking events on the Island: the single-women-only mixer.

One recent afternoon found Ms. Cardenas and Dr. Hughes headed for such a mixer at the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa at the Walt Whitman Mall.

Not only would they have a chance to commiserate with other unattached women over fresh fruit, sushi and cucumber water, they would also choose from a menu of pampering treatments, from mini-facials to professional makeup applications, having their hair blown out and attending a group lesson on skin care.

Afterward, relaxed, primped and perhaps bonded, the 18 women would move straight on to the more traditional half of the double-barreled event: a men-and-women singles party at Cirella's, a restaurant in the mall.

The strategy, Ms. Cardenas said, was win-win, whether or not she found her soulmate.

"Meeting women and men - it's a good two options," Ms. Cardenas said. "Doing the spa thing, if all goes wrong, you walk away with your facial. If all goes right, you make some new friends. If it goes extremely well, you walk out with a potential guy's phone number or being asked your phone number."

Jay Rosensweig, the founder of weekenddating.com, a three-year-old company that runs singles events, came up with the idea for the women's mixer after several women who came to his company's matchmaking events on the Island complained about having no single friends.

Mr. Rosenswieg's company specializes in the musical-chairs-style events known as speed dating, with men and women matched up for four to five minutes at a time to share the event's activity - bowling, perhaps, or rock climbing or cooking - before moving on to the next potential partner. "There is a lot of luck involved, as far as who is there the night you are there," said Mr. Rosensweig, who is 34 and single. The women who take part, he said, often found they enjoyed talking to other women more than to the men.

"The comments would constantly be, 'I didn't make a love connection, but I made a great new friend,' " Mr. Rosensweig said. So he canvassed the 5,000 single people on his e-mail list and, based on their very positive reaction, decided to develop an organized way for women to meet potential friends and activity partners.