Best Places To Meet Women: She's Out There (Men's Health)

[sword_]

I thought this was an interesting read. Your thoughts?


Best Places to Meet Women
She's Out There (Men's Health magazine)

Will you meet her? In times of economic distress, women seek emotional safe havens. Here are 13 places -- and reasons -- she's looking for you

Reported by: Kyle Western, Photographs by: Andrew Tingle

The saddest thing you will ever see in a bar is the lights on at closing time. It's the moment you realize that although you've been bankrolling her martinis since midnight, she won't be going home with you. And why should she? You're a stranger, and this is just a game. When the filaments flicker on, the fantasy ends.

"Men are possessed by the myth of the pickup," says David Grazian, Ph. D., an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife. It's in their heads that these bars and clubs are "teeming with anonymous females who are dying to have sex with any guy who is confident enough to talk to them." The reality is that less than 6 percent of women report having had sex with their partners within 2 days or less of meeting them, and less than 20 percent of adults say they first met their most recent sexual partner in a bar. Perhaps it's the nasty stigma of nightlife: A survey of 1,034 women by StrategyOne, a market research agency, reveals that nearly one in four women would be embarrassed to admit that she met a mate in a bar.

So why does the alcohol-soaked pick-up scene still exist? Aside from the obvious reasons (tequila, vodka, rum), there's a surprising one as well: inexperience. Men are new to this 21st-century version of the boy-meets-girl game. In 1970, the median age for marriage was 23 for men and 21 for women. Today it's 28 and 26. "It used to be that people felt they'd somehow missed out if they didn't have a spouse by the time they graduated college," says David Popenoe, Ph.D., founder and codirector of the National Marriage Project and a professor emeritus of sociology at Rutgers University. "Today, people feel they need to establish themselves economically first." The postponement of "I do" means most men will be single in their 20s, a trend that populates the bar scene and empties the church aisles.

The real world of dating is rough on men. The risk and onus of rejection are almost always on them, because men initiate about 80 percent of encounters. And the competition is brutal for men in their 20s and 30s: For every 100 unmarried women there's an average of 113 unmarried men, according to the U. S. Census Bureau. And those men just aren't doing the job. The Pew Research Center found that about half of young singles reported going on no more than one date in the 3 months prior to its survey, and 55 percent of singles who were looking for love said it was hard to meet people.

But the situation doesn't have to be that bleak. In fact, there's no better time to be single than during an economic recession. A recent eHarmony survey found that one in four single women say that financial stress has increased their interest in a relationship. Compare that with the 61 percent of men who say money worries are causing stress in their love lives. Look at it this way: More women are on the market, and they're primed to connect. But men are looking to meet them over $12 martinis -- and are going home alone and broke. There's an opening here for you: Think patterns, not people. Forget the pickup lines and rely on the new rules of attraction. We can help you with the odds.

Go on to the next page to learn some rules for meeting women...

Rule 1: Build Your Romantic Network
You're 227 percent more likely to meet a potential girlfriend through a friend or family member rather than in a bar, at the gym, or on the street.

Malcolm Parks, Ph. D., knows the secret to meeting women: Don't.

Instead, meet people.

Parks, a University of Washington communication researcher and author of Personal Relationships & Personal Networks, has determined that 75 percent of the people who dated extensively the year before said they had help from a friend. In their corner is what Parks calls "the social proximity effect," which holds that the probability of two people meeting is directly proportional to the number of contacts they share. In other words, more friends means more female referrals. "Our research has shown that two-thirds of people who initiate a romantic relationship had met at least one of the dozen or so members of their partner's closest social network prior to meeting their part ner for the first time," says Parks, "and nearly half had met two or three." If you know Tom, and Tom knows Betty, then there's a greater chance you'll meet Betty. And if Tom also knows Susan, Heather, and Kimberly...well, then you owe Tom a fruit basket.

The potential is there, but the problem is that most men's social networks are too small or too stale to be effective. The average guy would have difficulty mustering enough friends to round out a Fave 5, according to a 2006 survey in American Sociological Review. In fact, our close social networks have shrunk by almost a third since 1985.

But it's not just the friend famine that's starving our sex lives. Socially inbred crews are detrimental, too. "In a tightly knit group, you know the same people," says Parks. "Your friends can't introduce you to women you don't already know." That's why access to a new resource, whether it's an unadvertised job opening, a lead on a house listing, or an introduction to a woman you might click with, is more likely to come through casual friends than close ones. It's what social-network theorists call "the strength of weak ties," and the greater the number of unique casual connections you have, the better positioned you are to benefit. These types of people are essentially network bridges, says Parks. They connect you to women you might not otherwise have met through your close friends. The secret isn't blind dates and setups; it's party invites and casual introductions.

The beauty of forging weak ties is that while others hunt, you gather. To be successful, you need to continually meet new people outside your existing circles in order to find quantity and diversity in new links. All connections have potential. For example, you may have written off the guy with a wife or live-in girlfriend, but he's the money ball. According to a 2003 study in Social Networks, dating couples share 20 percent to 25 percent of their friends, but that percentage increases to 50 when they start living together. The result: His network is likely to be populated with more women after he moves in with her.

We'll supply the fertile meeting grounds. You find the equivalents in your town, and the potential mates who gather there.

Weak-Tie Strongholds
Dallas Sport and Social Club coed kickball
Team play encourages what sociologists call "situational generalization" -- in other words, positive circumstances help people click. "When people are working toward a shared outcome, they're more likely to grow closer together," says Parks. Recreational outfits make it easy to form new connections because individuals can sign up and be assigned to a team without needing to know anyone.

ImprovBoston theatre performance classes
Sharing a funny experience can help reduce tension among strangers, according to a 2004 study in Personal Relationships. And improv class will sharpen communications with everyone you encounter.

Durham Bulls Athletic Park (Durham, NC)
For the cost of a Yankees ticket (or less), you and your friends can each grab a multigame package featuring up to 13 MLB minor-league affiliates. Rooting for team sports can boost testosterone levels -- yours as well as hers. And T is the libido hormone, so if your team wins, you both win. Try this: Split the cost of an extra package with your friends, and then take turns inviting someone new. It'll expand your weak ties, and the presence of friends creates a "celebrity effect" that can be as desirable as attractiveness or wealth.

Meetup volunteer groups
Selflessness is sexy. A 2008 study published in the British Journal of Psychology showed that women consider altruism more important in a mate than men do. To show your selfless stuff , try joining a Meetup volunteer group (volunteerism.meetup.com).This net work serves a variety of causes, allows you to select groups with members who share your interests, and lets you see who has signed up for which projects.

Rule 2: Let Chaos Be Your Wingman
Less than 1 percent of women say they met their current partner because they were neighbors, compared with 22 percent of women who say their man is from a different part of town.

When a team of two physicists and a human-network scientist tells you your life is bland, you know you're in trouble.

Northeastern University researchers took their dig in a 2008 study in the journal Nature, after they tracked the movements of 100,000 cellphone users for 6 months. Their finding: People are predictable. Nearly half of their human lab rats kept to a maze that was little more than 6 miles wide, and 83 percent mostly stayed within a 37-mile radius. And they tended to spend the majority of their time in five or fewer places.

The result: dating pools the size of shot glasses.

In the United States, there's an average of only seven single women between the ages of 20 and 44 per square mile. Now consider your "spots," the places you usually go despite the presence of equivalent alternatives: your Starbucks, your bank branch, your dry cleaner, your gym, your grocery store. These are embedded destinations in other people's travel itineraries, too, meaning they're also their "spots." If everyone repeats their routines, as the Northeastern University research suggests, the rate at which you encounter new women plummets.

If you stick to a 6-mile orbit, your romantic trajectory is stunted as well. "In the stock market, diversification is critical to reducing risk," says Amir Aczel, Ph. D., a former professor of mathematics and statistics at Bentley University near Boston and author of Chance. "In dating, the same rule applies. You should vary the places you go, and when you go there. This diversification will result in increased probability of meeting women who respond well to you."

Consider these tweaks to your routine.

Chaos Corners
Santa Monica Farmers' Market
Bust out of supermarket hell to join the communal ambience of a farmers' market, where you can tap into a spirit of sociability, exploration, and inquisitiveness. Engage her over the Asian pears, and she'll thank you for the rest of her life. To find a market near you, go to localharvest.org.

[sword_]

Yelp
Yelp.com's 5 million local reviews can lead you to a dry cleaner, cafe, barbershop, or bookstore where all the cool people go. Post your own reviews and you may meet a fellow critic. The social-networking functions of the site allow readers to swap private messages, post public comments, and classify deserving reviews as funny, useful, or cool, so you can navigate them accordingly.

Waterloo Records (Austin, Texas)
Research suggests that people are more attracted to potential partners who share their musical tastes. Itunes has revolutionized the music landscape, but for many passionate music lovers it can't replace the places like Waterloo and the 700 other independent record stores across the country. Go to recordstoreday.com to find a shop near you.

Ikea
Researchers note that shopping trips are fueled by social motives, including the desire for new communal experiences. Big-box stores are socially fertile: More than 10 million people pass through Ikea every week, and U. S. consumers spend an average of 2 to 3 hours each visit. And at Ikea, traffic moves one way, creating a natural movement and pacing that makes it easy to stroll and engage. Think about store or mall flow the next time you're shopping, and patronize spots, like the Apple store, that make kibitzing part of the experience. If you're the active type, L. L. Bean or REI might be a better bet.
Rule 3: Use Spare Time As Showtime
Approximately one-fifth of couples first met in public places. But as available free time plummets, you may not get out enough.

You're just about as likely to meet a woman during Sunday service at church as you are during "Sexy Saturday" at a club. The takeaway isn't that you need to find God to find a woman. You simply need to be with people, wherever they may gather.

Your time to do that is shrinking, according to a 2008 Harris Interactive poll. Americans have just 16 hours a week -- down 20 percent from 2007 -- that are all theirs. With leisure time scarce, many men make the mistake of blocking off a weekend night for dating, says Paul Dobransky, M. D., a Chicago psychiatrist and the director of DoctorPaul.net. "Their lack of success is due to their hyperfocused approach," says Dr. Dobransky. "They see meeting women as something that is done rather than something that naturally happens, which is the way women view it."

The single women are waiting, but they're not doing it in front of an LCD screen, where you're more likely to be most nights. On any given day, more women attend or host social events, volunteer, join religious functions, practice hobbies, or go shopping, while the average single guy is home, pathetically alone. Compared with single women, single men spend 45 minutes more a day watching TV and about 20 minutes more on the computer.

It's a surprisingly detrimental decision. A 2008 study in Social Indicators Research reveals that unhappy people watch 30 percent more TV every day than very happy people. "It's possible that TV causes people to be unhappy because it pushes aside time for activities with long-term benefits," says study author John Robinson, Ph. D., a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and director of the Americans' Use of Time Project. "Or TV viewing is an outlet for people who are already unhappy."

Whatever the case, the consequences are clear: If you shut down socially during the week, you're severely undermining your efforts and personal satisfaction. You'll have more success with women if you aim to collect experiences rather than phone numbers. Consider these connection points.

Showtime Showcases
First Fridays at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
In a 2008 University of Iowa survey, women ranked a man's intelligence and education higher than his good looks and financial prospects. On the first Friday of the month, stuffy cultural mainstays unbutton their starched shirts a bit, offering gallery tours, cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and music.

Movies in the Parks (Chicago)
In the summer, the park district invites citizens to pull up a blanket and watch movies. The air is warm with conviviality. Many cities offer similar programs. If yours doesn't, volunteer to start one, and meet artsy types and wealthy sponsors as you set it up.

Mile High Music Festival
"The rhythmic pulse of music lets listeners synchronize with one another, which can increase group cohesion," says Michael Cunningham, Ph. D., a psychologist and professor of communication at the University of Louisville. Concerts are good, but music festivals attract a more diverse crowd because of the different acts, and transcend the behavioral norms of everyday life. Visit festivalfinder.com for events near you.

Philadelphia Punk Rock Flea Market
Odd? Sure, and that's the point. If you want to meet interesting people, you need to do interesting things.

Bank of America Chicago Marathon
No, she's not waiting for you at mile marker 19. The real appeal here is the free training program held several days a week. Studies show that when we anticipate future experiences with someone, we focus on that person's positive qualities to better ensure that those upcoming experiences will be pleasant ones. Go to marathonguide.com for a list of races near you. No training program? Join a local running club.

[ReadsTheMisc]

wtf did i just read

[sword_]

Originally Posted by ReadsTheMisc

wtf did i just read

Cliffs:
-You have a better chance of meeting the women you want by increasing your social circle.
-Increase your social circle.

[GoutDeMiel]

Originally Posted by sword_

says David Popenoe, Ph.D., founder and codirector of the National Marriage Project and a professor emeritus of sociology at Rutgers University.

scarlet knights ftmfw

[skier_]

The reality is that less than 6 percent of women report having had sex with their partners within 2 days or less of meeting them,


lulz, really?

[ImFromDuval]

Originally Posted by skier_

The reality is that less than 6 percent of women report having had sex with their partners within 2 days or less of meeting them,


lulz, really?

only 6 percent.......?

[skier_]

Originally Posted by ImFromDuval

only 6 percent.......?

Well it says partners, I'm not dating anyone I've done that with?

[sword_]

Originally Posted by skier_

The reality is that less than 6 percent of women report having had sex with their partners within 2 days or less of meeting them,


lulz, really?

Yeah that statistic is bull****.

[ImFromDuval]

Originally Posted by skier_

Well it says partners, I'm not dating anyone I've done that with?

yeah but still ony 6 percent? Bitches be lying to the people asking about the stats

[Fused]

Originally Posted by skier_

The reality is that less than 6 percent of women report having had sex with their partners within 2 days or less of meeting them,


lulz, really?

That might be somewhat accurate, but I think women are more likely to lie about something like that and sex in general is the most lied about subject in history.

[beaucephus]

Originally Posted by skier_

The reality is that less than 6 percent of women report having had sex with their partners within 2 days or less of meeting them,


lulz, really?

Originally Posted by ImFromDuval

only 6 percent.......?

Originally Posted by sword_

Yeah that statistic is bull****.

Originally Posted by ImFromDuval

yeah but still ony 6 percent? Bitches be lying to the people asking about the stats

^^^ All of these

I read that and *facepalmed*

Also, LOL at the intergration of corporate names into the article (BofA Marathon) so blatently. As if there aren't enough ads in the magazine, they need to be in the articles as well.

[illninofan21]

The reality is that 96 percent of women report having had sex with their partners within 2 days or less of meeting them...

Fixed.

[skier_]

Originally Posted by Fused

That might be somewhat accurate, but I think women are more likely to lie about something like that and sex in general is the most lied about subject in history.

What?

I would lie about it probably if some random person asked me to be honest.

[GoutDeMiel]

Originally Posted by ImFromDuval

only 6 percent.......?

study obviously wasn't done in NJ

[skier_]

Originally Posted by GoutDeMiel

study obviously wasn't done in NJ

Or on planet earth...

[ImFromDuval]

Originally Posted by skier_

Or on planet earth...

exactly put it this way lets do the women who are in the RH misc

I know for fact 3 out of 5 belong in that category of two day thing. Thats already 60% right thur

[Kaptn Krunch]

I'd say the 6% is more like 20% or so. You know what they say - take the # she gives and multiply it by 3 to get the true %. But no woman wants to look like a whore, so even though she's out there slurping down dicks left and right as quickly as she possibly can, she lies. "Oh, I've never had sex within 2 days of meeting someone...Why, I'm a Catholic virgin nun."

[samcanadian]

"
Showtime Showcases
First Fridays at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
In a 2008 University of Iowa survey, women ranked a man's intelligence and education higher than his good looks and financial prospects. On the first Friday of the month, stuffy cultural mainstays unbutton their starched shirts a bit, offering gallery tours, cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and music."



sounds like the women filling out the survey were either not honest with themselves, or else they really don't have any idea.

[Ecnewyx]

Originally Posted by ImFromDuval

only 6 percent.......?

2 days or less of meeting them.

Wednesday: Meet and exchange numbers.
Saturday: Go out on first date and have crazy monkey sex.

"I didn't sleep with him within 2 days of meeting him."

[ThatGuy151]

Yea for sure 6 percent is a lie, most girls dont take surveys in the first place, the majority of girls are too busy slobbin on cawks and getting railed to have time to take a survey.

[brianphi]

I slept with a girl the first night we met in person (had a friend in common and minimal correspondance over email)... dated her for 4 months, amazing person much to my surprise. As you get older, sex quickly doesn't seem like a big deal. We both had been recently tested, and knew what we wanted and then it ended up being something more.;; It was an amazing relationship and I'd do it again.... I'm sure many will not understand, and that's ok too.

[KnjazVovk]

I have no social circle, I am instead surrounded by uninteresting people who just smoke weed all day and are boring.

When I finish school in a few months, I may nor may not find a job. if I do get a job, my chances of increasing my social circle decrease. It's a slippery slope. I ****ed up in life by doing nothing in the beginning, and now I'm seeing the dreary, painfully agonzing results.

[LovesMuscles]

Originally Posted by sword_

Cliffs:
-You have a better chance of meeting the women you want by increasing your social circle.
-Increase your social circle.

Basically. I don't think anyone should complain about not meeting men/women if they're spending a lot of time alone, at home or anywhere else where they are confined.

[truthhurts]

pickup isn't myth....just depends how you look at it

[Jedan01]

Fck social circles. Most of the guys I know are single and would jump any available girl who's at least average looking... they don't introduce them to their friends.

Another problem- the people I like to hang out with are not necessarily the crowd that I'm interested in dating. I'm comfortable with the musicians, smokers, and nerds, but many of the girls in these groups are unattractive or just plain weird. On the other hand, hot girls hang out with guidos and bros, and I don't particularly care for many of these people because they're fcking dumbasses who only care about drinking

I should just start approach girls randomly during the day when the bitch shield is not up

[AZZA23]

The 6% stat is spot on....cmon guys would u seriously make a chick ur GF if u banged her inside two days of meeting her...I dnt think so!

The best place to meet a potential partner is through work - think about it u spend more time with these people than u do ur family. Next best is through family and friends but not all of us have that luxury of an extended family and a heap of buddies who know hawt women.

Must admit reading that first line made me ****n depressed!

[percussion8903]

in again.

[DocHol1day]

Originally Posted by AZZA23

The 6% stat is spot on....cmon guys would u seriously make a chick ur GF if u banged her inside two days of meeting her...I dnt think so!

The best place to meet a potential partner is through work - think about it u spend more time with these people than u do ur family. Next best is through family and friends but not all of us have that luxury of an extended family and a heap of buddies who know hawt women.

Must admit reading that first line made me ****n depressed!

yea i would, but the she would have to do alot more to earn my trust than a girl who i dated for a while before commiting to.

work? seriously work? what the hell kind of stupid **** is that?!? 99% of relationships FAIL. if you are in a relationship with someone you work with, then WHEN your relationship fails you will be stuck seeing them every day. that is a reciepe for an emotional nightmare. DONT **** WHERE YOU ****ING EAT.

but yes, social circle is the best.

[riddlingminion]

Ya work is DEFINITELY not a good place. I mean if it happens it happens, but definitely don't go looking for it!