The 7 Best Ways to Meet Singles… Completely Offline 🥳

I wrote a guest blog this week for my amazing friend Jackie Pilossoph over at Divorced Girl Smiling. If you’re a divorced woman looking for all the divorce resources you could want—articles, trusted professionals, consultations, you name it—look no further.

As you’ve seen from my last several newsletters, how to meet singles offline rather than on dating apps has been consuming my thoughts lately!

So I wrote an article for Jackie diving even deeper into ways to get out there and meet people, no swiping involved.

I’ve included it below! You might recognize Method #1 and Method #5 from recent newsletters, but the rest are brand new (and I’m obviously still including #1 and #5 in case you missed them the first time around!).

It’s a long one this week, but I promise, it’s worth it. Here are the 7 best ways to meet people offline!

It seems like everywhere I look these days, articles are popping up about how much people are burned out on dating apps. Articles like this and this are explaining that it’s happening, but, as a dating coach, I wanted to show you what you can do about it. So welcome to my guide of the 7 best ways to meet people offline! Give your thumbs a break from swiping, and get out there with these 7 methods for offline dating.

1) Get Set Up – The Right Way

One of my favorite methods is, of course, the good old fashioned set up. But I’m going to tell you how to work some Psychology 101 to your advantage, so you learn how to get set up most effectively.

It may be tempting to tell a group of friends at a dinner party that you’d like for them to set you up with their eligible single friends, or even to send out a group text or email asking the same. But that’s setting you up for textbook bystander effect, where no one will feel the onus is actually on them specifically to help.

I made this mistake myself after my divorce. I sent an email to 10 of my close girlfriends, saying I was open to being set up with any single or divorced people they knew and would they keep me in mind. They said of course they would, but then… crickets. They got busy, they assumed someone else in the group would know someone, the email drifted away from the top of their inboxes, and I never followed up. Each of these friends would have been ecstatic to help me, but because I felt like I didn’t want to be annoying, I didn’t set myself up for success.

Here’s what I want you to do instead. Learn from my mistake, and send a personalized text to one friend (or one couple) at a time. You can use this as a baseline script, and tweak it to your voice and circumstance:

“Mary, it was so fun seeing you this weekend! I’m reaching out because I’m trying my best to meet more people through friends, rather than just relying on dating apps. Are there any single people you know through work or life you might be comfortable setting me up with? I’m open to meeting all kinds of people!”

I guarantee this method will inspire people to actually spend time going through their mental rolodex, because they will feel personally called upon to help you. Maybe not everyone will have great single candidates in mind, but some will, and you will go on dates!

And if they don’t have someone at the moment, make sure to follow up again in a few months. More likely than not, they’ll have crossed paths with or been reminded of someone they hadn’t thought of the first time around.

To those of you thinking “But Alyssa, I don’t want to seem desperate or annoying”—let me tell you, you’re not! Following up is actually a helpful way to let your friends know you’re open to them being involved in your dating life, and that it wasn’t a one-off, spur-of-the-moment thought you had. People know that being single and in the modern dating world can sometimes be a touchy or painful subject, so they need you to lead the way by letting them know you’re okay with talking about it, okay with receiving help, and, after some time has elapsed, that you’re still single and this is still top of mind!

2) Friend of a Friend Dinners

Here’s one for those of you out there who prefer a night in to a night out: host a friend-of-a-friend dinner.

The concept is simple. Invite 4-6 friends over for dinner, with one stipulation: they each need to bring one single friend whom the rest don’t know.

Even better? Invite 3 friends, have them each invite a single friend, and have the single friend invite a single friend of theirs whom the others don’t know.

The point is to have a minimum of 8 people. I’ve had a couple clients do this with only 6, and that number felt too small and intimate to flirt and mingle. You want to cultivate a feeling of energy and intrigue and laughter, which is much easier when the group is at least 8 and needs to split into a minimum of 2 conversations. There will always be chatter surrounding you, giving the dinner a livelier air.

After dinner, change up the seating arrangements and pull out some games. You’ll want games that foster conviviality and aren’t challenging to teach, like good old fashioned Taboo or a new personal favorite of mine, Wavelength. Games like these put people at ease, encourage inside jokes, and foster friendly competition—all great mechanisms for flirting and fun.

3) Hobbies and Clubs

Looking for a partner who shares your interests? Well, there’s no better way than to pursue those interests on your own, because you’ll inevitably meet people in the process.

Volunteering, taking intro language and music lessons, joining low-key rec sports leagues, singing in a local choir, signing up for a membership at a climbing gym, becoming a regular at a weekly trivia night*, and going to bars where there are “you play the winner” games like shuffleboard, corn hole, ping pong, or pool are all ways friends of mine have put themselves out there to meet people and have, in EACH of these cases, actually gotten dates. Even non-runners are joining running clubs hoping to find love.​

So join that local pickleball league, attend that author event with a reception afterwards, take a chance on a pottery class—when you do things that give you joy, your excitement and interest will be palpable to those around you. Name something more attractive than that!

*A note on trivia nights, after a reader asked where to find them. So many bars host weekly trivia nights! If you google your city + trivia nights, you’re bound to get tons of results. Many larger cities have full-blown trivia organizations that host trivia nights at multiple spots per week. For example, in New York, TriviaNYC, Trivial Dispute, and NYC Trivia League all list multiple days, locations, and times on their website. There’s even an aggregate site listing nearly all of the trivia offered across NYC, broken down by day of the week and neighborhood, here.

4) Watch Sports

If committing to a regularly occurring event or class is too much for your busy schedule at the moment, I have a huge hack for you: go watch major sporting events at a bar.

I’m not talking about watching regular Thursday night football at a sports bar, where only a few die-hard fans come every week to nurse a beer and complain. I’m talking about major sporting events where the bar advertises the screening in advance, airs it on a projector, and fills to the brim with people there to celebrate and have a good time.

This past weekend saw the end of the Copa América, the Euro Cup, and Wimbledon. But next week, as though sent from the IRL dating gods, it’ll be the 2024 Paris Olympics. People are going to flood to more social spaces to become momentarily invested in the weird sports they’ve never heard of before, and to go absolutely nuts when Simone Biles takes the floor. These types of bigger-than-all-of-us events put people in a social, open-hearted mood where striking up a conversation with a cutie is easier than it’s ever been. And don’t forget to use your new flirting techniques!​

And even if all that’s airing at the moment is a sport you know nothing about, take 10 minutes before you go to Google some key facts about the matchup. You’ll be able to say things like “Man, Messi needs to score soon if he wants his goals-per-minute ratio to stay better than Ronaldo’s!” (I know nothing about soccer/football and just read this in an article about the Copa América semifinals). And just like that: conversation, started! (Don’t worry—it’s okay to quickly admit you don’t know anything about the sport and just came to have a fun time, but would they mind explaining some game fundamentals to you? And thus, the conversation continues 😊)

5) Singles Events

Did you just shudder a little bit? I get it. “Singles events” used to have a shudder-worthy connotation. Are you catching yourself thinking “only people who are desperate or weird go to singles events”? Well, even if that used to be the case, I can tell you: it’s not anymore. Singles events are cool now!

There are some specific organizations that have been recommended to us by clients and friends who have used them. In New York, we’ve been hearing great things about Luvvly and We Met IRL. In Chicago, Meet IRL is all the rage. Then there’s Thursday, which is going strong in 37 cities across North America, plus nearly 30 more around the world. And though it’s not exclusively for romantic purposes, TimeLeft is bringing cool strangers together over Wednesday dinners across 10 cities in the US and dozens all over the world.

But perhaps the most helpful resource I can give is Eventbrite. If you’re unfamiliar with the platform, Eventbrite is essentially a search engine for events across the U.S. and a handful of other countries.

So, for example, if you’re a man in your 60s in the Boston area, you could enter “Speed dating 60s” in the search bar, select Boston as the location, and bam!—you’ll get a list of upcoming events that match your criteria. If you’re a woman in your 40s in Chicago, you could enter “40s singles events” and you’ll get that list.

According to a report from Eventbrite: “Dating and singles events are increasingly popular, with attendance rising by 42% from 2022 to 2023. Moreover, attendance has increased by 49% this year over last year.” Clearly, Eventbrite is a common connector for singles—don’t sleep on it!

But I also challenge you to think outside the box with Eventbrite, and not limit yourself only to events labeled specifically for singles. Any event where it’s easy to strike up a conversation with the people around you (think: cooking or crafting classes, nature walks, dance lessons, beer tastings, the list could go on and on) but that doesn’t feel overtly geared towards couples is a great bet. Learn more about which types of events to choose, how to search for them, and even some that are happening this week.

6) Alumni Groups

I still remember attending my 5 year high school reunion and being stunned at how much everyone had changed in such a short time. It was like the cliques, so viciously protected in high school, had never existed—everyone was kind, welcoming, and genuinely interested in who I had become as a person.

And that was only after 5 years. From high school. Imagine how fascinating people in your alumni networks are now, with so much more life under their belts!

Attend alumni events, offer to co-chair a reunion, join the donations committee, anything that gets you back in touch with folks you haven’t heard about in years, or even folks you never overlapped with during your time at the institution but who still have so many similar experiences and something of a shared language. Nostalgia is a powerful connector.

7) Facebook

I almost didn’t list this due to the taboo that so often surrounds Facebook, but then realized I just know too many people who have successfully used the platform to reconnect with people and find love.

We’re all decades past the crush we had on that kid at summer camp—why not send him a friend request for old time’s sake? And if there doesn’t appear to be a spouse in the picture, reach out with a funny story you remember and open the door to some reminiscence, some life updates, and, if there seems to be a green light, some flirting.

Same goes for old classmates, neighborhood friends, your sister’s boyfriend’s cute older brother—it’s totally harmless to reach out with a sweet memory and see if a connection is made.

Facebook is another place to request set ups, much like the personalized text back in Method #1. Here’s the thing: those requests still need to be one-on-one. Posting a Facebook status to all of your Facebook friends that you’re single and looking for set ups is not going to come off as plucky and enterprising, it’s going to be an overshare. Having heard of too many Facebook snafus (most recently, a friend’s mother somehow posted a picture of a mole on her father’s back as her profile picture), just make doubly sure that you’re sending someone a private Facebook Message when you reach out!

Need more help and support on your dating journey? I offer One-on-One Date Coaching, as well as a whole host of products (check out my Mindful Dating 101 course or my Dating Diary to start) to keep you motivated and even-keeled while dating. Book a free consultation call with me to discuss what’s right for you!
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Happy IRL Dating!

Alyssa

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