IIn her quest for a mate, Beth Cloutier has found herself looking for the person who holds the key. Not the key to her heart, but the actual key to a lock she wore around her neck at a recent singles party.
Lock and Key parties - already popular in New York and Miami - have made their way to the Twin Cities. Next month, Miami-based www.lockandkeyevents.com will hold its second soiree at Trocaderos Nightclub in downtown Minneapolis.
Upon arrival, women are given a necklace with a brass padlock; men are armed with keys. Both sexes work the room trying to match the two to four keys that go with a lock. Those who find the most matches are eligible for prizes - $75 in cash, a two-night stay at a hotel or $50 off your bar tab.
"The locks and keys make for a great ice breaker," says 31-year-old Cloutier who attended the first Lock and Key party at Trocaderos in March. "You can go up to someone and talk to them without hesitation."
The goal is not to become smitten with your lock match but to meet as many people as possible while playing the game. Cloutier, a payroll specialist who lives in Minneapolis, finds the parties less intimidating than the online and speed- dating services she has tried since her divorce three years ago.
"You can spend more time chatting with people if you want to get to know them," says Cloutier, who went on several dates after the event. "If you aren't interested, you can be nice and excuse yourself because the key didn't match."
For Shawn Green, who also attended the March event, the appeal of the Lock and Key party was you could go with a group of friends and meet people with similar interests - without too much pressure to make a love connection. "It was just more social," says the 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, a human resources specialist. "I met some terrific people, and we've gone out a couple of times as a group of friends."
Chris Pokladnik liked the fact the event attracted mostly professionals in their mid-20s to late-30s, but he wasn't crazy about the prizes. They interfered with what could have been longer social interactions, he says.
"The point of it was that people could mingle with each other," says the 32-year-old Fridley resident who works in insurance. "But some people were working on just trying to get tickets."
Dora Harris, who coordinates the local Lock and Key parties, also organizes local speed-dating events. She says participants are forced to take more initiative at Lock and Key parties than at other dating events. They have an hour and a half to find matches. When a cover band starts jamming to Prince songs, that's the cue for the minglers to wrap up and exchange phone numbers if they haven't done so already.
"Unlike things like speed dating, where you find out if someone's interested in you the next day," she says, "it's up to you to make the effort to see someone again right there and then."
Nancy Ngo can be reached at nngo@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5172.
What: Lock and Key party for singles in their 20s to 40s
When: May 19 , 7-9:30 p.m.
Where: Trocaderos Nightclub, 107 Third Ave. N., Minneapolis
Tickets: $20, includes one drink and appetizers
Call: 612-867-0744
Online: www.lockandkeyevents.com or send e-mail to minneapolis@ lockandkeyevents.com
