My least favorite question: “How come you’re single?”
Rather than inventory my baggage, I’m forced to reply with something like, “Because I haven’t met the right guy yet, Sheila.”
Dating and hook-up apps have proven fruitless. Bars and cocktail parties yield precious little. I’m too cheap to hire a matchmaker.
So I was delighted to learn about a fresh approach: Pitch-A-Friend.
“Ten to 12 singles get pitched by their close friends, PowerPoint-style, and the crowd is there to hype them up, cheer them on, and it’s a singles mingling event,” said Amanda Borowski of the fledgling Denver chapter. (There are several dozen across the states and abroad.)
The events take place at bars and breweries all over the metro. The pitcher and the pitched stand together between the screen and the crowd. The audience learned about their job, hobbies, attributes, and idiosyncrasies.
“It’s a green flag when someone has a friend who so passionately wants them to have a relationship,” Borowski said. “You hear so much more about someone than they would say about themselves.”
The approach reminds me of the medieval legal practice of compurgation, in which an accused party could get off scot-free if a dozen people vouched for them. (I’d prefer not to be scott-free if a nice eligible gentleman named Scott sauntered in my direction.)
While most of the events are focused on heterosexual coupling, I attended one geared towards the queer community. Watching friends boost friends made the night worth it — even though there was only silence from a guy I reached out to afterward. (The presentations finish with contact information for potential partners — mostly social media handles.)
“We’ve had a couple of people who didn’t know they were going to be pitched that night. So it was a total surprise,” Borowski said. “But when you see the presentations that the friends put together, it’s just so much love and a really great vibe.”
The next Pitch-A-Friend events are Friday, April 11, at McDevitt Taco Supply @ Vib Denver RiNo and Friday, April 18, at Lady Justice Brewing. See the full calendar here.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly named the city organizer for Pitch-A-Friend Denver. She is Amanda Borowski.
