Some time after Thompson founded FriendSwap, she and Columbus -- who knew each other from Harvard Law -- had dinner. The started talking about their mutual passion.
"We admired each other's work," Columbus says.
He showed her his grid. Thompson was impressed. She invited him to help her run FriendSwap, using the online database. For Columbus, it was a revelation, a seismic change on the order of the automobile replacing the buggy. He jumped wholeheartedly into 21st-century matchmaking, which he calls the "techno-yenta" approach. It was, he says, "like Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 going electric for the first time."
Now, he, Thompson and the other organizers spend nearly a month before the FriendSwap party swapping their friends together. They read every profile in the database, they memorize the profiles of the 50 or 100 people they've been assigned to represent, and then they get together on weekends with laptops and sheafs of paper and discuss who goes with whom.
It is an imperfect science. At various times, roommates and even exes have been inadvertently matched with each other. There are also happy accidents -- couples who come about even though they weren't swapped.
It's hard for Columbus and Thompson to say exactly why they matchmake. After all, they're not benefiting from it. On ethical grounds, they've excluded themselves from the pool of FriendSwap singles. (Thompson is dating someone right now; Columbus is not.) In a sense, they've stepped into the void left by modern parents and fragmented communities, a culture in which unattached people are left to fend for themselves in the wilds of bars and dance clubs. Who else will do it?
"In the Jewish tradition, if you arrange three matches, you're guaranteed a share in the world to come," Columbus says. "I'm not sure if I believe that, but it's best to err on the safe side."
Thompson puts it in unsentimental terms. "The marginal cost to us . . . is much less than the marginal benefit to everyone else," she says.
Perhaps the "why" is hard to answer because matchmaking is an evolutionary imperative, the way a species ensures its own survival. Why do mothers suckle their infants? Because they must. Certainly a subset of Washington lawyers has now dodged the threat of extinction.
Who Needs the Swap?
Midway through the evening, through a fog of dark suits the sun appears. His name is Step Armah, and he has utter, golden confidence and a chest as wide as a side of the Pentagon. Armah, a consultant, cuts a swath across the crowded floor, the top of his chest bare and garnished by a winking medallion of Egyptian hieroglyphs. He is smart, he is funny and he is fond of giving attractive women long, liquid stares.
Right now, Armah, 38, is standing by the bar. He has seven swaps to meet tonight, but he's been having better luck with the women who aren't on his list.
"If you ask a guy, 'Which would you rather have -- a brilliant woman or a smoking hot mama . . .' " He trails off and grins.
Then he sees Jennifer Roberts. She is 26, executive director of the nonprofit Women Business Leaders Foundation, based in Foggy Bottom. (She's also, it must be said, an aspiring lawyer.) She is lean in her dark pantsuit, with captivating brown eyes and shiny brown hair that tumbles down her back. She notices Armah, too, and when they start talking she tells him she is running late to meet one of her swaps.
"I saw him," Armah says, heat radiating from his wide smile. "You aren't missing anything."
Soon, Armah and Roberts are deep in conversation, her swap seemingly forgotten.
After a few minutes, a young man interrupts. He is another of Roberts's swaps. He has khakis and dimples, and long bangs that beg for a trim. A moment of awkwardness ensues. Armah is quiet, wondering if he should take off. Roberts makes a joke and winks at Armah. He decides to stick around.
After 15 minutes, Roberts ends the three-way stalemate by announcing she has to go to the bathroom. This is a bluff and it works. The dimpled guy moves on, leaving Roberts free to lean over the bar and scribble her e-mail address on a napkin for Armah.
As it turns out, Armah meets only three of his swaps at the party. No matter, he goes home with the napkin, plus the phone numbers of four other women.
By 11:15, most everyone has cleared out, and Latin pop is playing. On the dance floor, people are no longer networking -- they are dancing. It is something unlawyerly, something beautiful.
