Art museum hosts a speed-dating night and only women show up. Here's what happens next

Featured on latimes.com

The news is alarming. Five minutes prior to the start of a speed-dating program called “Drawn to You” at the El Segundo Museum of Art, organizer Chelsea Hogan confides that no men have RSVP’d. It is a January evening, Friday the 13th — a nightmare dating scenario.

Eight women mill about the museum lobby, carefully dressed and nervously snacking on a cheese and veggie platter laid out beside bottles of Champagne and wine. Speakers in the gallery rock low strains of a romantic playlist including “True” by the 1980s new wave band Spandau Ballet, and fragrant perfume drifts through the air.  

The clock ticks 10 minutes past 6:30 p.m. as the awkward truth of the situation dawns on the women. A few men walk past the picture window on Main Street, but none turns and enters. Hogan, now sure that no surprise attendees are in store, finally breaks the ice by gathering the women together and stating the obvious.

“I’m sorry. I’d be really disappointed if I were you,” she says, adding that it would be great if everyone wanted to continue anyway. The point of the night, after all, is to meet people and make art.

To everyone’s credit, no one leaves. After a bit of embarrassed laughter, the mood lightens up. The plan was to have the guests sit at a long table and draw one another’s portraits. Each portrait would take about eight minutes before people switched partners.

It was a great idea, in theory. So why had no men shown up?

All the men, the women joke, are across the street at Rock & Brews. With rows of massive TV screens, more than 100 craft beers and a rock-themed beer garden, the restaurant is a bit of a macho magnet. The women are here because they are hoping to avoid another night at the bar. (“So college!” one laments.) They are also tired of dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid.

“I find out if someone is who he says he is,” says Leah Solomon, 58, of her interactions on Tinder. “One guy said he was from Brazil, so I started to speak Portuguese and he was like, ‘Oh no, I don’t speak Brazilian.’”

Solomon is tall, busty and blond with a youthful voice and demeanor. She has two sons, one 18 and one 20. She was married for 21 years, but the marriage broke up about 10 years ago and she has been pretty much single ever since. She left her husband because she fell in love with another man who turned out to be a great Peter Pan. When she reflects on the end of her marriage she sometimes thinks, “Wow, I must’ve been out of my mind. I didn’t realize that the men out there aren’t good men — those are staying in their marriages.”

Solomon is a performance artist, but she says she doesn’t meet a lot of single men in art circles.

“I think they’re just there to buy art,” she says.

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