A Day In The Life Of A Cat

New York cab driver steers single customers toward each other
By Jane Spencer
The Wall Street Journal

One Saturday night last winter, Troy Danka stood on a Manhattan street corner with no date, no prospects and no way to get downtown.

But things looked up when a yellow cab rolled to a stop in front of him. Shortly after Danka slid into the back seat, the driver, Ahmed Ibrahim, told him about a unique service he offers to single passengers: Ibrahim sets them up with blind dates.

Danka gave it a moment's thought and figured he had nothing to lose. "I tried online dating," he says. "Why not this?"

So as the taxi cruised down Park Avenue, Ibrahim, a 50-year-old Egyptian immigrant, pulled out a small digital recorder and pointed it at Danka through the bulletproof partition. "Say hello to the girls," Ibrahim said, before recording a brief interview with Danka about his age (26), occupation (technology consultant) and whether he is "a player" ("no").

With that, Danka joined what may be New York City's most exclusive dating service. How do you join? You have to ride in Ibrahim's cab.

Since he launched the service in February, Ibrahim says, he has set up dozens of passengers on dates with each other. His current clients include a fashion designer for Danskin, a doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital, and the former mayor of Morris Township, N.J., who requested a date for his son. Ibrahim is working on that.

Ibrahim doesn't charge for his matchmaking services. But not everyone who rides in his cab gets invited to join. Gruff, hurried passengers are automatically excluded. Men in their early twenties are often dismissed as too young and wild for a serious relationship. Older men who express an interest in younger women are deemed creeps. And anyone who can't produce a business card is under suspicion.

City dwellers have a long tradition of confiding in cab drivers about their romantic lives. Ibrahim says he got tired of merely listening. After years of watching eligible singles miss meeting each other by just seconds as they ducked in and out of his cab, it dawned on him that he is well positioned to help lonely hearts connect.

His system is simple. He records brief interviews with passengers who interest him and collects their cellphone numbers. When he thinks he has found a good match, he calls both passengers for permission and then passes along their numbers.

His passengers are sometimes baffled by the pairings that result. Danka, for example, who works at the accounting firm KPMG LLP, still isn't exactly sure why he was set up with an unemployed nurse who is two inches taller than he is.

When they met for margaritas at Mustang Grill, a Mexican restaurant on the Upper East Side, they quickly discovered they had little in common. Danka is relentlessly ambitious and wakes up at 5 most mornings to go to the gym. He reads books like Trump: How To Get Rich, and he is helping his sister launch a business selling pet furniture. His date told him she usually sleeps till midafternoon and watches tons of reality TV.

"Let's just say I didn't find her that intellectually challenging," says Danka, who nonetheless went on four more dates with her.

Ibrahim finds that New Yorkers are a tough crowd to please. "All the guys want Britney Spears," says Ibrahim, "and the girls are very, very picky."

Take Natalie Dillon, a 32-year-old graduate student at New School University in New York, who hailed his taxi last spring. When she told him she was single, Ibrahim pulled out the recorder and asked her what kind of guy she was looking for. Dillon began ticking off characteristics: She wanted a guy in his 30s who is smart, funny, athletic, well-traveled, ready for a serious relationship, a preppy dresser and comfortable on the dance floor.

Dillon recalls wondering how a taxi driver could possibly know whether a man is right after just one short cab ride. "All he's going to see is how he looks in the rearview mirror," she says.

Dillon heard nothing for several months. Then, in June, she got a call from a 33-year-old Manhattan tax lawyer named Martin Karamon. He said he had gotten her number from his "good friend Ahmed."

The two began chatting regularly. They talked about movies and TV and discovered they both love The O.C., an evening soap opera on Fox. She told him about her childhood in Japan and the Philippines. He told her about growing up in Michigan. They talked for a half-hour at a time.

The lawyer arranged their first date. They met in Central Park for an outdoor Ben Folds concert. Karamon is about 6 feet tall, lean and blond, with a wispy, "almost surfer boy" haircut. Sporting a tucked-in button-down shirt and jeans, he was just preppy enough to meet Dillon's standards. "He was very, very cute," she says. Karamon's assessment: "I was pleasantly surprised that a cabbie had such attractive women to offer."

They wandered the concert, drinking Heinekens and chatting about bands. When the concert was over, they headed to an Irish pub and talked into the evening. "It was the best blind date of my life," says Dillon. The two are planning to go out again.

Some of Ibrahim's passengers have become repeat customers. Despite his experience with the unemployed nurse, for instance, Danka has met four other women through the cab driver (including this reporter, for one date). "He's better than Match.com," says Danka, who got sick of online dating because women so rarely responded to his e-mails. "With Ahmed, the women actually call you back."

Ibrahim's cab is not a particularly romantic spot. The 2002 Ford Crown Victoria smells faintly of Marlboro Lights mixed with the Jordache "Romance for Women" perfume that he sprays in the air.

Ibrahim, an accountant by training, came to this country 25 years ago to avoid conscription into the Egyptian army. With no children or close relatives in the United States, he fills his time by working 12-hour days, six days a week, and lavishing attention on his clientele.

On Valentine's Day, he hands out roses to his single female passengers. At Christmas, he spends hundreds of dollars to decorate his cab, covering the interior with cotton snow, stringing white lights from the ceiling and installing intricate Christmas scenes in the back window.

Divorced 21 years ago, Ibrahim occasionally gets dates on the job. He met his most recent girlfriend, a Russian cleaning woman, when he picked her up in Coney Island during the 2003 blackout.

Ibrahim has favorite clients. He has struck up a friendship with Tracey Mammolito, a fashion designer he picked up last winter. Ibrahim nicknamed her "Miss America." And when she needs a ride to the airport for early-morning business trips, she frequently calls him on his cellphone.

Ibrahim is still trying to find the perfect guy for her. "I'm not stopping 'til she has a ring on her finger."