7 Places To Meet Guys That Aren’t Dating Apps Or Bars

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These days, it can seem like the only suggestion anyone ever has when we express wishing we could meet a great guy is either, “Download a dating app!” or, “Go to a single’s bar!”

And while these suggestions are often well-meaning, we’d rather meet someone outside the walls of a hazy, rowdy bar, and not by swiping through a million pictures of smiling faces and short bios that tell us nothing about the person behind the profile.

We’d rather meet someone in person, out and about, doing something we love. But we don’t quite know where to start. We don’t know where to go, or how to meet someone we’d actually have anything in common with. We don’t know where to start looking.

Here are 7 ideas for ways to meet a guy without downloading a dating app or going to a bar.

01 | Say yes to events you’re invited to.

The number one thing that will hold us back from meeting someone out in the wild is having the exact same routine, week after week. To break ourselves out of a routine rut, we should try to say yes to any event we’re invited to — birthday parties, weddings, or random gatherings our friends are putting together. This opens up the opportunity to come across people we wouldn’t have met otherwise.

02 | Go to a bookstore or join a book club.

Beloved author P. G. Wodehouse said, “There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature,” and we think the same goes for romantic relationships. A bookstore with a cafe to hang out in on the weekends, or a local book club both offer us the chance to meet a guy by first bonding over the book we’re reading.

03 | Volunteer for something you care about.

Whether we serve at an animal shelter, a soup kitchen, or with an environmental cause, we’ll be around people who care about the same causes, making for easier conversation. Plus, multiple meetups are more likely, should we continue volunteering regularly.

04 | Sign up for a class.

We never truly stop learning, even if we’re well past our college days. Sign up for a foreign language at a local community college, a cooking class, a writing class, or anything else that simply sounds fun — we might be partnered up with someone we really hit it off with.

05 | Get involved at your church.

If going to church is already a part of our routine, why not get even more involved by joining a community group, a Bible study group, or volunteering for an event? We’ll be surrounded by guys who share values and are probably also secretly hoping they’ll meet someone they click with, too.

06 | Check out a different cafe.

We might have a coffee shop we already frequent, but it may be time to expand our horizons and visit a new one — especially one with a more lively, bustling atmosphere than an I’m-getting-work-done tone. Bring a book to catch up on, or a journal to scribble thoughts down in, and make sure to give a half-smile to anyone whose eyes we lock.

07 | Let your friends set you up.

Most singles cringe at the thought of being set up. Sure, there’s an odd feeling that comes with having a friend “organize” a date for us, we always wonder if we’ll have anything in common beyond both being single, and if we’re both in the same friend group, we worry there will be awkwardness if we don’t click. And while we might not trust some of our friend’s judgment when it comes to romance, letting our closest friends set us up with a guy they genuinely believe we’d hit it off with is worth considering. After all, studies have found that we’re most likely to find a significant other through mutual friends.