Singles Club Cooks Up Social Idea : Mixing: Group of people hoping to connect with friends or significant others form a Valley chapter that provides a way to avoid TV dinners.

As anyone who’s single knows, solo diners seem as welcome to restaurateurs as an outbreak of salmonella. It takes a courageous heart and a very hungry stomach for a single diner to brave the steely eyes of a restaurant maitre d’ inquiring, “Only ONE for dinner?”

Five years ago, Gwen Minick of Calabasas found herself single again after her husband rediscovered his high school sweetheart. Exploring ways to get back into the social swing, she soon came upon a Los Angeles-based group known as Single Diners Social Club.

“I liked what I saw,” said Minick, who approached the group’s founder, Marilyn Wolff, about starting a San Fernando Valley chapter of the club.

Minick, an educator and administrator at a private school in the Valley, said she did research with single parents at the school and found a common complaint--”the drudge of working all day, coming home to the children and never having any social life. So I knew that there was a need for something like the Single Diners Social Club with activities that are Valley-based.”

The new Valley group had its first dinner in late June and plans a second one Saturday at Breakers Seafood Restaurant in Northridge, Minick said.

Singles like structured social events, said Dr. Marilyn Ruman, a clinical psychologist in Encino, because “adults find it uncomfortable to use meat market facilities or the bar scene. These days, safety is just as important a factor as finding intimacy. And when there is a focal point of interest, an activity such as dining, people immediately have a common connecting point. An activity club puts the activity first and foremost so personal rejection is not paramount.”

The 700 current active members of Single Diners Social Club now have the option of attending either Los Angeles- or Valley-based events. Minick said the Valley chapter is scheduling at least two dinner get-togethers each month at which she and Wolff will be hosts.

For a $50 annual membership, Single Diners Social Club participants receive a monthly newsletter on upcoming activities. When Wolff started in 1987, she was arranging just one get-together a month, but today the events are weekly. Each participant pays for dinner, which ranges from $25 to $40. Other upcoming Valley events include patio dining at the Airtel Plaza Hotel on Aug. 2 and a dinner and horseback ride at the B&B; Ranch in West Hills on Aug. 25.

Events average 35 attendees, with some special events attracting more than 50.

The mix of participants ranges from art gallery sales people and doctors to secretaries and business owners. “Some members also use the group for business as well as social networking,” Wolff said.

Bill Gertler, a freight management consultant from Tarzana, said his joining the Valley chapter doesn’t mean that he’s “under any illusion or delusion that any one group will satisfy what I’m looking for. I’ve been single a long time, and I’m associated with several different singles groups, so the Single Diners Social Club is just another venue for me to meet people. And I happen to like dining out.

“I have a saying, ‘I never eat, I dine.’ And I don’t like dances with loud music where it’s hard to talk to and meet people.”

Another Valley participant, a marketing manager from Canoga Park who asked that his name not be used, was hesitant to give the group his approval, but said: “The people I met were very nice and the event was nicely organized with a festive atmosphere.”

Minick and Wolff caution club members not to join with stars in their eyes about romance: “We’re not a dating service,” Wolff said.

“Our mission is to have everyone at the end of the evening walk out of the restaurant feeling good,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, club activities are the next best thing to hosting a dinner party at my own home.”

“We’re encouraged to see a lot of enthusiasm for our first Valley chapter dinner and a pretty evenly balanced turnout,” Minick added.

In Southern California, it is estimated that as many as one out of two adults is either single, widowed or divorced. And in the continuing search to connect with friends or significant others, group activities such as the Single Diners Social Club provides seem a legitimate way to avoid TV dinners and the tube.

Dr. Michael Glasser, medical director of the Mental Health Center at Encino Hospital, agreed, noting that “any environment that allows people to meet on a continuing basis with the same circle of people, around events that are not a one-shot deal, seems to work best at helping single people connect in Los Angeles.”

The next meeting of the Valley chapter of the Single Diners Social Club is Saturday at Breakers Seafood Restaurant, 9000 Corbin Ave. in Northridge . For information or reservations, call (213) 934-0504.