On a recent morning over cappuccino, one of the three Main Line morns I'm with whispers to me across the table: "Crate & Barrel." As she names the store, her eyes iden. Then she bites her bottom lip, masking an encroaching grin, looking like she'sjust revealed a sweet, illicit secret.
In a way, she has.
A happily married mother of two, even she has heard the rumor that home stores are the new meet markets. And so have her friends.

"My 31-year-old brother is there all the time," says Mommy Number Two. "He's single."
"It's like Whole Foods," says Mommy Number Three.
Could this be? Have home stores become singles scenes?

All the nights Ive wasted preening on bar stools, fighting postwork wilt in an effort to mingle ... all those early mornings at the gym, attempting to flirt without falling off the elliptical machine ... and all I needed to do was go shopping for a convertible sofa? Are these women serious? I admit, the prospect intrigues me. It also makes sense. According to the National Association of Realtors, in 2003, 21 percent of all home buyers were single women, and 11 percent were single men. Add to that the much-ballyhooed nesting and DIY design crazes—must we reference Queer Eye and Trading Spaces, the sales boom in home-improvement mags, and the proliferation of strip-mall home stores again?—and you end up with a burgeoning population

of young, motivated, responsible-and available-homeowners wandering the aisles of Lowe's and IKEA, Dane Decor and, apparently, Crate & Barrel, looking for platform beds and power tools and—who knows?— love among the love seats. It sounds good in theory. But is it for real? I need to know.


First Friday,
First Foray

Once an art event for art's sake, Old City's monthly gallery crawl now does double duty as prime time for pickups, and not just in the galleries. Shelter stores attract cruising crowds, too, mainly a mix of college students and 20-somethings...

At Mixed Company (www. themixedcompany.com), owner Bernadette Lawler has cranked up the samba tunes and appears to be hosting an all-out cocktail bash amidst the modern art and vintage furnishings. More than once, the Old City socialite has played matchmaker to her clients, hooking up an accountant with a doctor, a customer with a friend, saying, "It's natural for me to ask my clients how they live, what they do for a living, to go to their apartments. I get to know them, because theyre buying things that are personal." She also mentions that it doesn't hurt a single girl's prospects to own a shelter store: "I do pretty well in here," she laughs. I make a mental note to return next month.