They're one of at least three couples that have become engaged through FriendSwap. Another couple -- Kate and Gordon Todd -- were married earlier this month. They're also lawyers. Kate used to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, while Gordon works for the Justice Department. Their wedding was announced in the New York Times.
Even those who don't meet Mr. or Ms. Right can come away from a FriendSwap party with a renewed appreciation for the myriad ways in which it's possible to be a lawyer. At Maxim, there are government lawyers and corporate lawyers, law clerks and lawyers-to-be. Fully 30 percent of FriendSwap is made up of lawyers. Of course, there are also politicians -- two FriendSwap singles have run for Congress -- as well as people who work in politics, some of whom happen to be lawyers. There are government wonks and nonprofit people. There are PR folks and journalists, a number of whom spend their professional lives talking to politicians or lawyers.
Which is not to say that FriendSwap is homogeneous. After all, some of the singles here got their law degrees at Harvard, while others got them at the University of Virginia, and still others at George Washington University. Plus, there are four gay men. Three of them are lawyers.
The Voice of Experience
As at every singles scene that has ever existed, the women at FriendSwap are cooler than the men. They know how to bluff. Thus, if there are women alone at FriendSwap, you don't notice them being alone. They stride purposefully. The men, meanwhile, tend to amble slowly, playing with their straws and trying to look natural, which is a dead giveaway. Worst of all are the guys who stand alone, looking into the middle distance, spots of conspicuous motionlessness in the moving crowd.
"Look at that guy," says Aaron Tax, 28, observing one of his fellow men. "He's like looking, looking, intently looking, but for no one."
Tax went to law school at George Washington and now works as a fellow in employment policy for the Department of the Army. He has a slight build, lively hazel eyes and a self-effacing sense of humor. Tax has five swaps, only three of whom are here tonight, and he's relieved to talk to a reporter because it keeps him from looking as though he's alone.
"You have to come with a wingman, and I didn't," he says. He surveys the crowd and sees another solitary man. "He's doing the let's-be-occupied-with-my-empty-cup. I've done that myself."
Tax is friends with an attractive redhead who, for the second year in a row, has received an inordinate number of swaps. This year she has nine. Last year she had 13, and was forced to use an I-have-to-go-the-bathroom ruse to extricate herself from bad conversations. Sadly, few of Tax's conversations tonight will last long enough even to hear such an excuse.
Tax did FriendSwap last year with no luck, and came back again, the way a man keeps buying lottery tickets no matter how slim his hopes. After arriving tonight, he announces it "kind of intimidating" and "horrible," and a few minutes later observes, "She's cute." This event is an investment, like the singles-oriented scenes Tax frequents at the D.C. Jewish Community Center and jdate.com, the online Jewish dating service. Each moment spent milling around a room with strangers brings him that much closer, he hopes, toward finding the right girl. Always there is a sense that that might be her, right over there. Sometimes, much as he hates singles scenes, he has trouble leaving.
"It's like gambling," he says at one point.
Abba sings "Dancing Queen." There's a dance floor, but nobody is dancing.
Making Connections
FriendSwap is not a formal organization. There are no dues, and nobody makes any money. The group is simply a bigger, more technologically complex version of a matchmaking obsession that both Heather Thompson and Eric Columbus pursued separately for years.
Thompson, who recently left her job as an associate at Patton Boggs to work for the Democratic Senate leadership, used to throw frequent dinner parties. She'd invite people she thought would make good matches, seat them next to each other without telling them why, and observe. She says two engagements resulted.
Columbus, a former Hill staffer and now an associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering, used to carry a small notebook in his pocket for the purpose of matchmaking. He'd divide a page into a grid, with the columns for male or female, and the rows for whether they lived in D.C. or New York. (Being from Manhattan, Columbus knew people in both cities.) Each time he met a single person he thought shouldn't be single anymore, he'd write his or her name down, then try to match the person with someone else in the grid. He says one of the couples he set up this way recently got engaged.
