Size 10s Need Not Apply

I thought I had women all figured out. Thought I understood how they think. Thought I knew what makes chicks tick.

Ladies, I’ve always presupposed, want a man with a certain set of attributes: funny, smart, romantic. Confident, dependable, good listener. Passionate, generous, and possessing a pot to piss in. The list is so predictable, it’s clichéd. Or so I thought.

Turns out there are at least 13 single gals in the greater New York area who find this to be a fetching characteristic in a fella: He requires that his sweetheart fit into clothing between size zero and eight … and that she prove it.

Earlier this month, a baker’s dozen of single-and-searching women paid actual money to attend a Manhattan matchmaking event called Skinny Minny Speed Dating. Hosted by OnSpeedDating.com, the soirée promised to introduce single fellas (of any size) to women three to seven dress sizes smaller than the average American gal.

The photo accompanying the online invitation shows a man stroking the chin of a woman who looks like Skeletor on Atkins. “Guys, no need to worry about meeting a biggie-size chick,” the invitation said. “We’ll be checking labels at the door!”

And they really do.

“We actually write the women’s sizes on their name tags so that there is no speculation,” said Amber Soletti, the company’s cofounder. “If we get any flack from the women about being checked at the door, I let them know that fair is fair and we have the same protocol for men at our (other events).”

To its credit, OnSpeedDating.com is indiscriminately shallow. It offers a More to Love night stocked with full-figured women, a Stacked night guaranteeing women with a C-cup or larger, and a Size Matters event packed with men at least 6’1” tall. Men and women are both waitlisted to attend the next Hung night—for guys who claim to have seven or more inches of love to give. (They are not measured at the door).

“We all have relationship ‘deal-breakers,’ and that does not make us shallow,” said Soletti, who volunteers that she’s a size 10, which I can’t help but find sort of charming. “We’re just single New Yorkers who know what we want. I’m personally only physically attracted to tall men with big hands and full lips. Obviously that’s just the physical starting point; there are also substantive qualities I’m looking for. But that’s where you’ve got to start, as physical attraction is key to any relationship.”

Hard to argue with that. But here’s what I don’t get: Why would a featherweight female drag her tiny hiney to Skinny Minny night—and pay $40 to do it? I swear I’d rather be tossed naked and sober into Corporate Lesbian night than show the tag on my stretch jeans to some doorman at a NoHo pub for the privilege of schmoozing with size-obsessed mancreeps. (There were 15 there, and 40 more on the waitlist. Eww.)

Maybe these gals recently lost a ton of weight and have been waiting their whole lives to be objectified? Maybe they have literally nothing to offer a guy but their narrow waists? “I’m bitchy, jobless, and dumb as a bucket of hair, but I rock a size-4 pencil skirt. To whom do I make out a check?”

Soletti said it’s simpler than that: “It’s nice, as a woman, to know you’re signing up for an event where the men are more likely to be attracted to you.” I’m not sold. But my friend Sharon pointed out that singles events like these really do act as a reliable filter.

“I think they’re great,” she said, “because it’s nice to know all those people are gathered in one place — and not wandering the streets, where we might have to meet them.”