From: rkf@wildrose.infoserv.com (Ray Fink)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Various ramblings part 2: new approaches
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 20:38:46 MDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Wild Rose Refugee Camp

kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:

>the answers may seem obvious to the rest of you.  Questions like "where
>can I go to find women?".  The answer to that question isn't obvious to
>me and it's not readily observable (okay, so there are exceptions, like
>bars and dance clubs.  I've already checked out the environments that

Kevin, rather than replying with lots of generalizations,  I'll try
a different tack by answering very *specifically*.  Think of this as
raw data, and you can use it to test some hypotheses.  [My hypothesis is 
that *how* you meet women is by having a life, being an interesting person,
and *learning* how to talk to almost anybody about almost anything; Teri 
Miller and others have already said this far more eloquently.]

But *where*?  Here are some data, off the top of my head, in no particular
order, where I met the last N women I asked out. (most of the answers 
were yes, a few were no).

- friend of a female friend (who I had previously dated, she introduced us)
- another friend of the same female friend (ditto)
- collaborator on a project at work two years earlier (while I was married)
- already a friend from back in my married days (a couple different cases)
- co-ed volleyball teammate
- on an airplane coming back to town ... the plane was practically 
  empty but she took the middle seat next to me :-)
- approached me in a bar (several instances)
- a divorce counseling group, met again at a ski club party 
  (hey, it's a small town)
- my ex-wife's fiance's estranged wife (a small town, indeed)
- friend of a another (married) female friend
- friend of a female friend of yet another (attached) female friend 
- I answered a personals ad in the local newspaper
- I answered an alt.personals ad on the net
- my kids' daycare center
- cross-country skiing, we both were out by ourselves and happened to be 
  skiing on the same trail
- sharing a table in the bar while waiting to be seated for dinner in
  the restaurant...I was out with married friends, she was out with a 
  married girlfriend of hers.
- a duplicate bridge tournament
- the dry-cleaners
- working with the local community theater group
- a Halloween costume party at a friend's house
- co-ed volleyball pickup games (ok, what do *you* call them :-) 
- out for a walk in my neighborhood on a sunny winter afternoon
- on a chairlift at the ski area

I could continue, but this should provide a statistically valid
sample size...perhaps the LovelyAndTalentedDawn (TM) might advise us.

And there's another (longer) list of places-where-I-met-single-women-that-
I-did-NOT-ask-out, but the flavor of the list would be very similar.

None of those turned into anything long term serious, and there's only
2 or 3 in that list where I wanted something long term (sigh).  I'm
definitely not god's gift to women or anything; unlike some 
net.men, I can actually go to a grocery store in broad daylight without 
having women come up and start fondling my produce purchases :-)   

So *where* to meet women?  There's my experience.  Anybody else got
some data for Kevin?

-- Ray

Newsgroups: soc.singles