
There’s an art to finding your mate. It’s not enough to just wander aimlessly and assume that he or she will bump right into you. You must learn to look and locate in profitable places. That’s the difference maker. So here we profile ten great places to find your mate.
Business – Charity Networking
Non-profits of all shades offer various social-fundraising events featuring a wide array of activity and intrigue. These types of events are high-yield in several ways. First, they are often stand-alone and open access, meaning that you can intersect at any point. Research online and identify several options in areas near you. Second. profitability is heightened as people with similar interests and values often circulate in these realms. Volunteering regularly puts you in a regular outpost to meet people. I’ve known single women who gave enormous amounts of time to female only groups (Junior League or Sorority Alumni), which seems counter productive. Pick up your hammer and write your checks, just make sure there are potentials surrounding you.
What causes do you support? What groups would you like to connect with?
Faith-Based Organizations
These are very fruitful scenes that have connected numerous couples in matrimony (including yours truly). There is no excuse to not connect with a faith-based organization. If your church has a scarcity of eligible singles, seek secondary groups such as missions and para-church organizations to participate with. Several friends of mine met through serving high school students through Young Life. Forget feeling guilty for entertaining the thought of meeting your husband or wife through these channels. That’s non-sense. Stop the false piety. Serve the group, believe in the mission, and keep your eyes open.
Is there something holding you back from connecting with a faith-based organization or meeting your mate within?
Grocery Store
One place that every adult goes, usually in a friendly mindset is the gigantic food pantry. In the supermarket era of specialty areas and fancy cafés interactions are quite normal. They almost cannot be avoided. “Oh excuse me, would you mind helping reach those gluten-free crackers on the top shelf?”
Have you been to the grocery store in trendy parts of town?
It’s a cornucopia of potential. With singles frequenting these markets daily, buying individual meals and fresh treats, your local grocery store is a seed of opportunity. Dress cute, be chatty and flirt away.
Active Events
Serious sport leagues and group fitness competitions, as well as casual pastimes like billiards or horseshoes, provide avenues for you to connect through the enjoyment, and regularity of active social pursuits.
Enjoy softball? Excel at soccer, hiking or horseback riding?
These natural integration activities are perfect venues to encounter new potentials, get a glimpse of tenacity, integrity and disposition. Through years I’ve watched dozens of couples matriculate through various sports leagues and events. They came, they played, the fell in love. Whether you reside in urban confines or rural spaces plenty of opportunity awaits you with active events.
Old School Circles
Sales gurus often say that previous customers have great untapped revenue potential. So it is with marriage pursuit. The people you already know through the streams of your life are potentials and links to potentials. The commotion of growing up can leave us isolated from this strength zone. Intentional efforts to reconnect and explore could be quite exciting. Very fruitful connections can spring forth from the fertile soil of the old hometown. Ladies go ahead and reach out to guys and girls from your past. You have every right to say hello to a guy you graduated with or worked alongside. Your ping could become his prompt!
Who in your existing networks have you always desired to connect with?
Weddings
Many marriages have bloomed in the shadow of friends’ nuptials. We continue to be thrilled by a friend couple who reconnected in a major way at our wedding and are now married. Several times during my bachelor period I landed a promising date while dancing the night away in a groomsmen’s tuxedo. Weddings beget weddings; there is a perpetuation going on. So be a wedding goer – a positive, upbeat, and savvy guest who makes the most of afforded opportunities. Inquire about the invite list in advance and request stragetic seating. Take advantage of the before and after festivities.
What weddings do you need to make sure you are invited to attend?
Parties
Go to something; a birthday dinner, going-away party, or holiday bash. Each new event provides the prospect of meeting new people. What a thrill! Develop your conversational skills, be an energetic guest, and partake in the wonderful opportunities unfolding every weekend. If you don’t see what you’re looking for create it. Many of my friends connected through some type of watching party, a gathering at a park or other celebration One concept I recently learned about is a meet-up. These are specialized groups that gather to connect people with similar interests living in similar areas. Found online, meet-ups can be highly organized and promote purposeful association. Be a smart marriage seeker and fine-tune your social-life strategy.
Social Networking On & Offline
Online hangouts are the soda parlors of the twenty-first century. By providing quick, targeted access to connections with millions of single adults the world over, social networking has explosive potential for your marriage pursuit. Certainly it can become a diversion and stumbling block as well. But, if you work it right, social media can help you enlarge your circles, sift through piles of candidates and strategize your connections. Consider sourcing or creating custom groups suited to your personal style within the big behemoth sites. Online activity can lead to offline social networking opening up avenues for you to gracefully meander through various social circles in search of your mate. Parties, introductions, set-ups and team flirting all can flow from your online presence.
How are you working your social networks?
Singles Connection Sites
Two nights before writing this post I sat next to a couple in their late thirties and asked how they met. Match.com was their reply back in 2003 when online dating still had a stigma. Good for them; here they sat now as the married parents of three young children, looking resplendent and joyful. Well, the stigma is now gone. Online dating is a real avenue allowing millions to transcend geographical constraints and identify strong candidates scattered all over creation. I amazed at the ever-expanding array of unique dating connection sites. There seems to be a place for every subset. For committed Christ-followers E-Harmony has been a fruitful field. I have married at least four couples who matched through their values and interests on E-Harmony. Find your ideal site(s) and get going, unleash the best of your personality and cautiously proceed.
What singles connection site would you like to try?
The Workplace
There is too much negative hype surrounding connecting through the workplace leading to the unhelpful adage, “don’t date at work.” That phrase should include the word “recklessly.” Many, many people have successful pursued marriage through work arena connections. This could include someone at your company or a related firm. In my early days in the corporate world, I would always scout the front offices of companies that I visited for young ladies without rings on their fingers. Unfortunately my industry yielded few connections, so I was envious of the rookies over at large consulting and CPA firms who landed in large new-hire pools with thriving social scenes. Bottom line, young post-college types often spend enormous amounts of time “working” so multi-tasking during your day is a must.
What potentials do you see during your workday?