Check your attitude at the door, smile, open your mind, have fun and prepare yourself to meet the person that you might spend the rest of your life with. This is Blingles, an event for Black singles aged 30 and older who are ready to meet with someone of the opposite sex in an unthreatening setting.

Unlike dating services and clubs Blingles is one of the few events in the city of Toronto where people are greeted at the entrance by a host who instructs them to check their coats on the left, and any negative attitudes on the right. The point of this event is to encourage Black singles to come together and have a good time with good people. The creator of this affair, Anne Marie of Imani Enterprises saw a need for Toronto’s Black professionals to loosen up and become more approachable. “Toronto is very goal oriented and goal focused. I have a strong drive, I have to work but fun has to be a part of my life. This is a difficult city to forge friendships.”

Growing up in Nova Scotia Anne Marie had a hard time with the difference in cultures after moving to the Mega city. In Nova Scotia Black people don’t avoid eye contact with each other when they pass each other on the street. They even say good morning or hello to people they’ve never met. She didn’t see much interaction between the men and women of Toronto unless it was networking for business purposes. Even in the clubs she saw segregation amongst men and women to the point where men were self-consciously dancing in groups, while the women would sit down with their arms crossed looking nasty and as unapproachable as ever.

With Blingles Anne Marie has set out to break down these walls with a show that is interactive and entertaining. To date there have been three Blingles events and a fourth one is scheduled for May 2005. Each Blingles event follows a specific theme; this upcoming one is supposed to be Blingles Spring Bling. It will be an opportunity for people to have a getaway and mingle in a vacation type setting without really having to leave the city. If it is anything like the previous shows the women will probably out number the men.

In the first Blingles, which was an after work social, only 52 out of 220 guests were males. The second event Blingles Eve, held the eve of New Year’s Eve, had more of a balance with a ratio of 60 women to 40 men. In both of these shows the guests participated in games, and watched comedy sketches, and were entertained by some of Toronto’s top poets and singers.

In putting together these shows Anne Marie found out that there is a stigma attached to the men who go out to singles events. So she makes a special effort to target the men and change this idea because the brothers have been missing out on the opportunity to meet Toronto’s beautiful Black women.

Anne Marie wants to see people begin to converse with each other more freely, even if it’s not for the purpose of getting together romantically. “There seems to be some great divide here between men and women and for some reason we’re not communicating properly,” explains Anne Marie.

Along with the lack of communication there are people who complain that they are having troubling meeting new people. Anne Marie’s solution to this problem is to help people become more approachable and recognize the pleasure in conversing with others. “What I’m doing is creating a fun environment for people to relax in, because that’s what I don’t find people in Toronto do,” asserts Anne Marie. “If you’re relaxing having fun somebody’s gonna want to talk to you, more so than if you’re standing around posing and looking angry.”

Screw faces are a no no at any Blingles event. These affairs even have their own set of rules, which are read out even before the itinerary is revealed. Women are not to wear their hearts on their sleeve, no posing, and so on and so on. Anne Marie understands that she has started something revolutionary, and these Blingles events are not restricted to just games, poetry and singing. There will be Blingles dinners, bowling and movie nights, also bus trips to Detroit for ballroom dancing and Atlanta for the Midtown Music Festival are in the works for the future.

The impetus behind Blingles is unification. Many Toronto people complain that people in the city are cold, that they don’t support each other. Toronto has even been called the screw face capital of the world. The way to change that is through socialization, and Blingles is helping mature men and women to drop their guards, relax, let their minds be free and get down with the sounds of Black unity.

For more information of Blingles contact the Blingles hotline 416 706 7694