Let's do dinner — and PowerPoint

Patricia Handschiegel's dates start like many other couples': "We cook an amazing dinner, grab a little wine," says the 36-year-old Los Angeles entrepreneur.

And then ... ? "We pull out our laptops and get some work done."

Toiling side-by-side for hours, "we laugh and have a great time," she says. "I know it doesn't sound fun," she adds, but working on dates has saved her from a worse fate: No social life at all. She says she is so busy running a Web site, launching a second one and working part-time in public relations, that "I probably wouldn't have left the house or office" for any man if she couldn't bring her laptop along.

You've heard of working vacations. Now comes "the working date." Many single people are so busy with careers that they don't have time for a social life. So they're increasingly blending work and romance. For some, the practice has provided a path to lasting love. For others, working dates are one more way to avoid intimacy or just a major turn-off.

In part, the phenomenon is driven by so many Americans working wall-to-wall hours. But also, more people are plunging into all-consuming entrepreneurial ventures at younger ages; "as an entrepreneur, you don't really separate" work and life, says Beth Schoenfeldt, New York, co-author of "Ladies Who Launch." And more women have high-powered careers, making them a match for men who can't stop working either.

A matching work ethic is becoming a kind of compatibility test for many career-minded singles. A typical working date for Scott Friedman, 47, of Denver, a motivational speaker and humorist, starts with, "'Look, I'm busy. You're busy. Why don't we order in and we'll work?"' With one recent partner who also has a demanding career, they would dine on Chinese food at his kitchen table, admiring the city lights from his windows. "Then we'd work for a few hours," he says. "At least," he reasons, he could glance at his date across the room. After that came dessert or a trip out for ice cream. "The actual social part of a four- to five-hour date would be 60 to 90 minutes," he says. The relationship ended for other reasons, but the dates "made me feel better, because I wasn't always the one saying, 'Geez, I have so much to do."'

A subsequent relationship tanked partly because the woman wasn't as busy as he was, Friedman says. Although she agreed to pass time reading a magazine while he worked after dinner, "it was uncomfortable for me because I knew she was just waiting for me to spend time with her," he says. Feeling guilty, he broke it off. "I decided I was better off by myself."