Sunday, December 14, 2003

By L.A. Johnson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It's a Tuesday night at Club Cafe, an intimate spot with excellent sound a short block off the South Side's main drag.

	Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette Dinah Denmark, 41, left, keeps busy whether she's dating or not. At the Club Cafe recently, she waits with Trish Klein, a member of the band Po' Girls, for Kris Delmhorst to take the stage. Click photo for larger image.

Dinah Denmark sits at the end of the bar nursing a Coke and a French cognac. From her corner stool, she has a great vantage point of the crowd and the small stage.

A petite woman with dark, short-yet-bushy androgynous hair, Denmark sports a black leather jacket, black jeans and a crisp white shirt. Her small intense, blue eyes peer out from behind her squat blue-framed eyeglasses.

"I was in an eight-year relationship that broke up in March, but it's OK," says Denmark, 41, of Banksville. "I'm optimistic about my newfound singlehood."

During the week, she's a marketing and communications manager for a bank. On Saturdays, she's a volunteer disc jockey and host of the Saturday Music Mix on WYEP 91.3-FM. She also sits on the board of directors of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh. On this night, she's at Club Cafe to enjoy the music and introduce the main act, singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst.

"I hear a lot of people complain about being single in Pittsburgh, but for me, I think the city offers a lot," Denmark says. "As a DJ, I go to lots of shows and different WYEP events, and I also have the gay and lesbian community."

Last month, she went to the Lambda Ball, one of the premier gay and lesbian fund-raising events of the year, a Rufus Wainwright concert at the Byham Theater and a couple of Club Cafe shows.

"I don't come here with the purpose of meeting women," she says. "I come here to hear the music. .... I know the people, I know the staff."

Denmark laments that holidays have been and will continue to be difficult.

"New Year's Eve, chances are that I'm going to be alone," she says. "I probably love being single 75 percent of the time, but then 25 percent of the time there's dealing with the loneliness and mastering that."

Denmark has dated since her relationship ended, but isn't ready to get into another long-term relationship. Being single is a very individual thing, she says, no pun intended.

"You can sit home and mope or check out what the city has to offer," she says. "It's there if you want it."

The Dayton, Ohio, native thought she'd end up in New York, Boston or San Francisco, but never did.

"I'm very happy here," says Denmark, who's lived in Pittsburgh 20 years. "Great people, a friendly feel and lots of cultural opportunities."

She doesn't feel any special discrimination being single.

"I feel more discrimination being a lesbian than being single," she says.

And the single life is just fine for her right now.

"Life is what you make it," she says. "You can't rely on somebody else; you have to make yourself happy."

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