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Articles about our conversation salons
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WANTED: Just Friends By Ellen Warren (excerpted from the Chicago Tribune Tempo article of 3/12/98) A wider circle of friends Attorney Kathy Hamill, 46, and her boyfriend; Robin Slater, 55, a computer expert for Sears, live in Elgin because it's convenient to their jobs. But they found they were yearning for some decent, provocative conversation. They too placed a friends ad in the Daily Herald and Chicago Reader to try and widen their circle of pals. Hence, the ad that appeared recently: LOOKING FOR SOMETHING remarkable – suburban unconventional thinkers starving for imaginative, intelligent conversation. A salon in the making perhaps? Entertainment highly likely – community, affinity, celebratory connections possible. Fox Valley area. They expected four or five people to respond. They got 20. “What we found is that there is no forum, no venue, no place to go to meet people ... intelligent, creative people who like to do things that creative people do ... rather than sitting around watching TV, and things,” says Hamill, who works for the state representing indigent criminals who are appealing their convictions. Hanging out in bars, she said, the meeting game is largely about “appearance first.” She and housemate Slater are more interested in “ideas, first and foremost.” All of this information was conveyed over the phone. So, it seemed at least possible (probable, really) that Hamill and Slater were people most often referred to as “having a great personality” and “really smart” – code for physically unattractive. Read on. Escaping the rut The first meeting of the group was set for last Saturday night at the Hamill-Slater house described in their follow-up mailing as “a two story gold and brown Mansard roofed thing” in a subdivision off Randall Road. “Warning: We entertain on floor cushions. If you require a chair, please let us know ahead of time,” read the three-page mailing for the “First Salon Meeting.” Waiting at the front door Saturday was a pretty, petite woman with bangs and shoulder-length blond hair. Hamill led each guest to what might have been a family room or a dining room, illuminated by flickering scented candles, a tie-dyed curtain on the window, and futons and cushions on the floor, also tie-dyed. There was candy, fresh fruit and three kinds of Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers. A little '60s. But nice. Robin Slater, the host, is tall, lean and handsome. Also, funny. With the weather threatening to turn nasty, the couple figured attendance at their first “salon” meeting would be way down. In fact, everyone, all 20 of us, showed up. Some were shy. Some seemed to like the sound of their own voices. But overall the group of professionals in their 40s and 50s – 9 men, 11 women, all Anglo except for a Japanese woman and Puerto Rican woman – seemed pleasant, intelligent and just looking for something interesting to do on a Saturday night in the suburbs. Rick Axley, a big man in a green sweatshirt with a duck on the front, explained why he made the drive from Bellwood: “I'm just tired of sitting around and talking about the Blackhawks and the Bulls and the Bears and how the Cubs are 'going to do it this year'.” Not an elitist or a snob, this railroad car inspector said he wanted to get out of the rut of “go to the bar, drink a beer and talk about the game.” “As an adult, our culture doesn't provide many opportunities to find interesting people. It sucks,” said Jamie Inglehart, a 40-year-old so devoted to the idea of talking to some interesting new people that he and his wife drove nearly an hour, from Oak Park, to be there. Recently widowed, her children grown and out of the house, Elgin's Chi (pronounced Chee) Fritz, 49, an engaging woman with a glorious smile, has switched careers from dental hygiene to massage therapy in Elgin. She said she came to this meeting because, “I'm now on an adventure to create the second half of my life.” There were empathetic nods. Cathy Braun, 50, of Barrington (curiously, one of three Lucent Technology employees in the room) came with a neighbor. “We're on a quest to do interesting things.” That neighbor, Judy Taritas, 54, who works for a large real estate firm, said, “We don't want to do the standard crap.” Topics at the salon meeting ranged from television (pro and con) to nihilism, spiritual quests, CDs versus vinyl, muscle cars and James Joyce. “It takes a lot of guts, going to some strangers' house, knowing that you're expected to make interesting conversation,” Hamill said after the first gathering. Originally, the plan was for everyone to go home at 10:30. But some people were having such a good time, they stayed until almost midnight. “It went as well as it possibly could,” said Hamill. “We're definitely going to do it again.” |
