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Friends with benefits: Game show is a match made by proxy

Friends with benefits: Game show is a match made by proxy
Photo by Elizabeth Graham

Most people would not trust their closest friends to fill out their résumé. But a surprising number of Brooklynites are willing to let their friends share their romantic curriculum vitae with prospective dates.

That is the concept driving Friends of Single People, a new game night at Littlefield in Gowanus where host Jo Firestone tries to match-make in classic “Dating Game” style, but with proxies filling in for the actual lonely hearts. Firestone said she came up with the format because she thinks her friends do a lousy job of playing the field.

“The single friends that I have don’t see themselves as great as I see them or they misrepresent themselves, for better or for worse,” said host Jo Firestone.

For each round, one stand-in gets to choose from three others while all the real contestants sit anonymously in the audience. Firestone asks questions that each pseudo-suitor must answer in the first person as if she or he was her or his friend.

And these are no tepid office party ice-breakers.

“What do you look like naked?” “What is your ideal date?” and “What is your smooching style?” are just a few of the questions Firestone has lobbed at unsuspecting contestants, expecting them to answer as honestly-yet-flatteringly as possible for their nervous pals.

“You want to win, but you also want to make sure you don’t offend your friend,” said Molly Gaebe, who once took her wingman Taylor to a game where each represented the other.

Gaebe and her friend both won their rounds, but both their prize partners turned out to be duds.

“We both ditched our dates and went looking for other people,” she said.

Such romantic misadventures are not unusual in the world of proxy dating, according to Firestone, but they are enjoyable to watch.

“That’s the thing about the game that is so much fun. You end up with people who are not compatible at all,” she said. “You’ll get a five-foot-tall guy matched with a five-foot-eight-inch-tall woman.”

Friends of Single People at Littlefield [622 Degraw Street between Third and Fourth avenues in Gowanus, www.littlefieldnyc.com]. Mon, Nov. 11 at 8 pm. $5.

Reach reporter Danielle Furfaro at dfurfaro@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2511. Follow her at twitter.com/DanielleFurfaro.