“Where Are All The Single Men?” …A Guy’s Answer
So... in an effort to help both sides of this divide, I brainstormed up a list of all the places my straight single guy friends and I spend time.
Recently, I wrote a piece about how I’ve been asking straight men where they find single women. I collected a number of answers, some were good and some were not so good. After it was published a few women contacted me and asked if I knew where single straight men tend to hangout. Since I am one and a number of my friends are as well, I did a bit of reverse engineering and considered where we spend our time. So… in an effort to help both sides of this divide, I brainstormed up a list of all the places my straight single guy friends and I spend time. This is by no means an exhaustive list, some of the answers might not fit your regional location quite as well, but I think you can use it to extrapolate some similar locations in your home environment.
In no particular order, here are ten places I’d tell any female friend to look if she wanted to meet single straight men.
1. Go to shows (live music, art openings, readings, book signings)
I’d say the majority of my friends are musicians, artists, writers, filmmakers, small business owners, dudes who work in creative fields in various capacities, which means they’re often very busy with their work/passion. But all of us like to go out. And we tend to go out in either small groups or in pairs. We go to lots of live music and art openings, Artwalk events, and readings. I’m not exactly shy, but I don’t go out looking to chat up women, and neither do I see that many women going around chatting up guys. Which means, if there’s any hope we’re ever gonna find each other, we should all occasionally look up from our iPhones, take that leap of faith and talk to the attractive folks near us, when and if they happen to smile when we make eye contact. What do any of us have to lose? Right? …And if you’re a smoker, it’s like super-easy for you because you guys are huddled together outside anyway. Since you’re likely to die sooner, I’d say get on it! I’m just kidding, smokers. But for everyone, get out there and see some live music, take in some art, attend a reading and promise yourself you’ll talk and flirt with at least one cute stranger.
2. The gym (…this is similar to the answer about women & yoga studios)
I don’t have a gym membership, so I have no idea what it’s like in those sweaty rooms where people lift metal and ride stationary bikes and climb pretend hills and row boats that don’t go anywhere. I do push-ups and sit-ups and pull-ups at home. I’m really not qualified to say much about gyms. But I live in L.A. which means a number of my friends and neighbors go to the gym like old Italian ladies in New Jersey go to church. And from what they tell me there’s a serious (and somewhat douchey) social scene at the gym. If you have a gym membership, and you see a guy who isn’t an obvious tool, maybe start a slow romance of smiles and perhaps one day when you’re not actually in that main room that I always imagine smells of ball sweat and old socks, and you bump into him in the parking lot, ask him about some upcoming event you’re excited about and see if he wants to go. It’s straightforward and it’s clear. Most guys will be flattered and likely to say, “Sure, sounds cool.”
3. Car shows, motorcycle events, professional sports
I desperately want to get a motorcycle. Sadly, it doesn’t really fit my lifestyle at the moment. But I still go to most bike events and old car shows I hear about. If you have any love for cars, or dream of riding on your boyfriend’s motorcycle, or if you have your own bike and are looking for someone to ride with, I can tell you the male-to-female ratio at these events has gotta be something like 17-to-1. At least. Another place my friends and I go is to see pro sports. Doesn’t matter if it’s soccer, basketball, or baseball, (L.A. doesn’t have football, but we’d go if they did) these are also place where the guy-to-gal ratio is skewed high to the guy side. If you have fond memories of going to see sports when you were young, or if you were a jock, or if you just like to see guys run around, pro sports, like bike events and car shows is another great gathering ground for single men. And you can get drunk in public in the daytime and no one rolls their eyes, which is worth the price of admission alone. Daytime drinking is no longer a popular past-time in our culture for reasons that elude me.
4. Beaches, skate-parks, rock-walls
I spend a lot of time at the beach because I don’t skateboard as much as I used to, and I’ll say it plain, I never spend any time rock-climbing, but I have friends who are instructors and some of them are pretty hot. I’m just saying. At least that’s what my sister tells me. So if you want one of those active sports kinda guys, I’d go to where they do their sport. Doesn’t matter if you don’t surf, skate or climb. That won’t be a deal-breaker for the guys. And like the bike events, there are far more dudes at all those places than there are gals. So the odds are in your favor and the attention would be yours to do with what you will. Maybe wander down to a climbing center and just talk about how you like camping, that should be close enough to make conversation. Or head to the beach for a surfing event if you like sun and sand, and say hello to any guy you think is cute enough to deserve your attention. Trust me, guys are ALWAYS surprised and USUALLY flattered when a girl makes the first move. Most of us don’t think less of a woman or assume she’s needy/desperate/crazy just because she came over and started flirting. I mean, obviously she has good taste. Right?
5. Ask out your waiter
Living in Los Angeles means I also know a number of actors. Since they need days free for auditions, they usually take odd jobs like catering or night jobs like waiting tables. Most of them are single. But like I said in the previous article… you NEVER want to hassle your waitress since she’s working. Yes, she’s obliged to come back to your table, but don’t turn that fact into a small torture. Treat your waiter the same way. Don’t abuse the fact he has to refill your ice tea. Of course, if he sticks around to flirt don’t hesitate to let him know you like his smile. And then if things go really well, you’ll know when that’s the case, guys are pretty obvious (as you probably already know), and you can sense he’s into it, have the eggs to ask for his number. Then call him.
6. Traveling- hostels, hotel bars, airport lounges, and train stations
One great benefit of traveling is all the opportunities there are to meet strangers. Usually, a travel romance is understood to be a brief thing, a fleeting moment like morning dew on rose petals, but that’s not always the case. If you’re at the airport heading home, or if you’re in a hostel or hotel and you find out you’re from the same city/town, treat it like you’re back home because that romance has a chance to grow. Yet it also has all the mystery, allure and intrigue of travel to give it a little kick in the ass to jumpstart your heart.
7. Charity events
My friends aren’t miracle-workers, but a lot of them have their hearts in the right place and they do all sorts of volunteer work like teaching music to underprivileged kids or distributing food or clothing to the homeless. And they don’t expect a pat on the back for it. They don’t usually talk much about it. They just disappear early on some Saturday morning. So if social outreach matters to you, if social justice means something to you, but you’re not getting out there as often as you would want, be a little selfish and give yourself that added motivation of romance. Maybe while you help someone else, you help yourself.
8. Date up and down: your mechanic, housepainter or plumber
This one may get me in a little trouble but I don’t care. Like I’ve mentioned before I used to paint houses with a friend. And we often laughed at the difference at how women treated us when we were out in street clothes versus when we were out in our paint whites. We were the same guys just in different wrapping paper. And only women in their thirties seemed to look past our paint whites. My friend still has the company. He owns his own home. Has a dog and a huge garden he built in the backyard. He and his wife eat dinners they make from their garden. Despite the fact he goes home with paint under his fingernails, he has a damn good life. Working blue collar for all those years, I met and worked with a lot of really intelligent, well-read, interesting dudes. A lot of them complained about how women wouldn’t take them seriously because they were a plumber, or a mechanic, or a solar installation guy. It’s a shame that even though women are gaining all sorts of social and economic power, they still tend to only look at guys across the office from them or above them on the financial ladder. I don’t see many women looking down the financial ladder at guys who would make damn good partners but might make less than six figures. So… maybe, consider your funny mechanic, your cute housepainter, or the stone mason with great taste in music. I promise you there are good and decent ones out there.
9. Golf courses
If it matters to you how much the man in your life earns, and I don’t judge anyone for that, as long as they’re honest about it, then I’ll let you in on an observation, all my richest friends seems to have one thing in common. Golf. Doesn’t matter if they like to play or not, their lifestyle and their associates seem to require they spend time on the links. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to be a golfer yourself. Not at all. You don’t need to know the difference between a sand wedge and a pitching wedge to nab a golfer. They probably won’t want to golf with you anyway. But there’s a great place to wait for golfers. It’s called the 19th Hole. It’s the bar at the clubhouse in just about every golf course I’ve ever visited. If you want to meet a golfer, that’s where I’d recommend you hang out.
10. Pick an event from your local weekly… and go by yourself
Lastly, let spontaneity be your matchmaker. In L.A. we have the L.A. Weekly. It features quality journalism and often breaks interesting stories, but primarily it lists current events, new movies, art events, restaurant reviews, what’s going on in local theater, etc. If you’re in a major city, I assume you have something similar. Either pick up a copy at a coffeehouse, or hop online and scroll through the events for that week. Pick one. Something you want to do, or see, or hear, or whatever and go… by yourself. Promise yourself, you’ll talk to and flirt with at least one stranger. Doesn’t matter if you want to take them home or not. That’s up to you (and whether or not you feel like shaving your legs that day). The key is to go and flirt so you keep in practice. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll get lucky.
There you go… there’s at least 10 places/ways to find some (decent) single straight men.
Good luck and happy hunting! 