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It was about a decade ago (okay, a little more than that) when I found myself low on funds, following a lay-off. A former high school classmate called and asked if I’d like to sell ads for his publication, The Gayellow Pages. His saleswoman was hospitalized with a serious illness and he needed help. Ads were sold to both gay and straight businesses, and being that I had freelanced in the Advertising and Graphic Design fields for some years he thought I would do well. I’d be paid a commission on the sales. This was a new area for me but I was game.

After I spent a while working on sales, I got another call from my former classmate. Seems one of his customers had a part-time position open up so he recommended me for the job. This was for Lunch Friends,* a gay dating service. I was interviewed by the woman who was their office manger, then met the man who founded the service. The job was explained: gay men and women, who were seeking to meet other members of their community, would call and describe the kind of person they’d like to meet (ethnic background, physical attributes, hobbies and interests). I’d then have to look through the book of current women members and see if I found any that fit their description, then contact the member and ask if they’d like to meet the caller for lunch. I’d be working a few evenings in their office on Union Square, and also on Saturday afternoons. Sharing the room with me, taking calls from men, was a huge teddy-bear of a guy with a beard. Let’s call him Teddy Baer. So far, so good. It seemed fairly simple and straight-forward (reverse pun unintended).

So, there I was giving this new career a try. I’d be answering the phones — passing the calls coming in from men to Teddy, and taking the calls coming in from women. I’d look through the women’s book of members, try for a match and then leave the results up to the two people I introduced. If they continued seeing each other I got a commission. I did fairly well although, with the number of existing members down, there weren’t always a lot to select from.

One late afternoon a woman called and asked if she could come by the office to browse through the book. She told me she was in the entertainment field and had lots of straight friends. She preferred Latinas, but since she was tall she wanted someone close to her height. This made for some difficulties, since most Hispanics — male and female — are short. However, I told her I’d do my best. She came by, was very charming and outgoing, and looked at the photos and bios I had gathered for her (members’ names were never disclosed, for privacy). She wasn’t sure she was interested in meeting any of those I came up with, but at one point said, “You must enjoy looking through the book”. I responded — with a smile — “Actually, I like looking through the men’s book.”

After she had left, and she hadn’t decided, the founder called me into his office for a chat. He realized I was straight from the comment I had made, and told me he preferred I’d be more careful next time. The woman who left may not have felt comfortable with my remark, he suggested. I said I was sorry, but she seemed fairly open-minded and mixed with a lot of straight company, so I hadn’t thought anything of it. Why hadn’t they asked me what my orientation was when they interviewed me? “Because that’s illegal” he replied. (So true. I had totally forgotten about that.)

I continued working there for some weeks, but found making matches with few members to choose from was getting kind of tough. And no matches meant no commission. Some evenings I’d get crank calls coming in from teenage boys. It never bothered me; I might say something back and hang up on them. But one Saturday afternoon I got the strangest call, from an adult male: “We’ve got a bomb! We’re going to come over and kill all the gays, Jews…” (and a long list of whoever else he hated). I passed the call on to Teddy, who became unnerved. I was fairly calm. Teddy called the boss at his home, who suggested we lock up and leave. While I suspected it was just a hoax, I had visions of newspaper headlines mentioning I was killed in the office of a gay dating service. (That would have certainly surprised my mother, who always wanted to know everything I did — even though I hadn’t lived at home for decades.)

We locked up and left. Nothing happened. We returned to work the next week. Shocker of shockers, I found out Teddy was straight, too! The boss hadn’t told me and later explained that women wouldn’t feel comfortable working alone at night with a straight male so they let everyone believe he was gay. Funny. Two straight people being matchmakers at a gay dating service? Well, we were both good at it. But the money just wasn’t there so I eventually left the job. They were sorry to see me go.

*Lunch Friends (not the real name of the service) was a great concept but was going through a declining membership base and eventually folded. It was an interesting experience which proved my attention to detail and ability at match-making was a talent I’d never utilized. Unfortunately, I haven’t done as well with the straight world. In October 2007 I came across a news story about an attractive, tattooed woman who was the owner of a witchcraft store in the East Village. I immediately sent an email of the article to a musician friend, who had been in a hardcore metal band and was similarly inked with tattoos. It turned out he already knew this woman: his ex-wife had worked for her and she was the one who served him with the divorce papers. I really bombed with that one!

-By Yvonne Fitzner, Contributing Writer & Member

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