I took a swing dancing class once on the advice of friends who said I needed to join some social group for the purposes of meeting women.

Most of the participants were men doing the exact same thing. Most of the remaining participants were married couples. Perhaps young, single women are aware of when they might be walking into an ogling trap?

The main thing I learned (apart from novice swing dancing) was that joining up in social groups for the explicit purpose (or even partial purpose) of evaluating potential mates is inefficient.

There is another aspect of this that I legitimately want to ask questions about: what do you do if all of your interests are male-dominated, and you're seeking a female partner with characteristics anti-correlated to those types of interests?

I'm not just talking about preferring some male-dominated things, and needing to try new things. I'm talking about already having tried lots and lots of things and learning that, after years of reflection, the only things you actually enjoy just so happen to be male-dominated. (Basically, I'm saying the excuse of "try something new" is not applicable in this case).

For me personally, one of my greatest recreational hobbies is to play very complicated, strategic board games. I love playing immersive games that take many hours to play and require fairly intensive level of thought and focus. I grew up playing competitive chess, and I have always just had a really deep seated fondness for this type of game, even from a very young age. I love the idea of having a partner who likes it as much as I do, but after years of going to board game meet-up groups, university game clubs, and playing with my extended network of friends, I have not ever met a female who enjoys these games anywhere close to the level that I do.

In terms of athletics, I mostly like to do long distance running and weight lifting, both because I tune everything out and have "introvert time" -- definitely something I don't want to share with a partner. I also love to play squash which is unfortunately a very male-dominated sport.

I love hiking and camping -- but what is so funny is that you can take an activity like hiking and just add one tiny variation to it to turn it into geocaching, and now suddenly it is a male-dominated "nerd" hobby with a very negative connotation when dating.

Hiking == good, rugged, self-reliant, healthy

Geocaching == dork, lame, anti-social, takes too long

Sigh, it's all about status.

I also enjoy recreational software development, which again is heavily male-dominated. Even the interests I have that skew on the more popular side of things, like Premier League football or certain obscure corners American humor, tend to be male-centric (e.g. how disappointing that the subreddit about Earwolf's Hollywood Handbook is so male-dominated!).

Yet I consider myself extremely willing to try new things. My interest in feminist literature was piqued once after reading a Slate Star Codex post, and I went off the deep end reading every highly regarded piece of feminist literature I could for months. I have gone through long patches of life when I am pseudo-religiously focused on yoga and meditation. Animals are a hugely important part of my life, particularly cats. I mentioned taking a dance class.

I'm not going to win awards for being the world's most well-rounded guy, but I try hard to challenge my perspective and explore new things. And even still, the God's honest truth about who I really am inside is that I just so happen to be most passionate about a bunch of hobbies that happen to be male-dominated.

Probably the singular interest I have that is widely shared with women is that I love cooking and spend a lot of time perfecting recipes and cooking unusual things. But I am vegan and a lot of that has been motivated by my desire to never sacrifice the tastiness or desirability of my food just because I am vegan -- and so even this makes people uncomfortable.

The uncomfortable truth as I have grown older and become more comfortable about understanding who I really am is that I just simply don't share hobby interests with very many women. I would prefer to meet and share relationship experiences with more women, but I have adjusted to accept that dating life for me means long periods of being single punctuated by opportunities to date those extremely rare women who happen to be interested in or at least curious and tolerant of my interests and personality. They have been amazing women ... but it's still not the ideal.