The Singles Scene is located in bars that are so dark and loud it’s impossible to see or hear anybody else. You can meet, fall in love, and get engaged without ever getting a clear view of the other person, which can lead to a situation where you arrive at your wedding, with all your friends and relatives, and you discover that you are betrothed to a cigarette machine. (Which actually may not seem like such a total disaster, once you find out what else is available on the Singles Scene.)

To avoid this kind of embarrassment, you should do what other smart singles do: Before you sit down, go around the room discreetly shining a police flashlight into the other singles’ faces. Once you have selected a likely looking one, you should sit down near this person and get into a spontaneous conversation.

In the old days, the way people got into conversations was the woman would take a cigarette out of her purse and pretend to look for a match, which was the signal for six or seven available lurking men to lunge toward her, Zippos flaming, sometimes causing severe burns.

Smoking, however, has pretty much lost its glamor, to the point where trying to get a strange male to light your cigarette in public would be viewed as comparable to trying to get him to pick