The Apple Store – Best Place for Singles to Meet?
A recent Cosmopolitan article suggests the Apple Store as the top hot spot for single women to find a single man. Really? I only shop at the Apple Store once or twice a year, and when I do I’m a typical guy shopper – head into the store knowing exactly what I want, make the purchase and promptly leave. Maybe that’s why I’m still single, I’m going about things all wrong. Rather than grabbing a drink at a local restaurant bar, I should be hanging out at the Genius Bar.
Which begs the question, why don’t more women hang out in restaurant bars? They’re a great place for educated professionals to meet. Sip a glass of wine, flirt and chat in a mature environment, minus the ass-grabbing or go-home-with-me expectations of a meat market dance club. (I enjoy an occasional night out on the prowl, but also understand it’s geared more towards taking someone home to bed, rather than home to meet the kids.)
As a suburban single dad, I have few built-in opportunities to meet single women. Silicon Valley, where I live, is full of families. The women I meet are soccer moms, PTA moms, neighborhood moms, almost all of them married.
Forty miles away in San Francisco there are plenty of single women, but they live there and I live here. Even if I was willing to drive the hour each way for dates, we wouldn’t be part of each others’ social fabric. I’m involved in my kids’ lives here, volunteering in schools, sports, and other activities. I can’t do that if I’m heading up to the City all the time. And no way would I live in San Francisco and inflict a long commute on my kids.
Cosmo got a few things right in their list, suggesting things like joining a volleyball league, taking up indoor rock climbing, volunteering for a cause. All things where men and women can do something fun together. (Thank goodness internet dating wasn’t on the list. Though for hooking up, sites like Craigslist are an essential resource.) But as I pointed out in my Salsa Dancing post, there’s way more single men than women in the Valley, and many of those women aren’t interested in single dads.
The magazine also suggests working in a Fortune 500 company to meet other singles, especially a firm with male/female ratios in your favor. I have to admit, it was through work that I met the woman I married. But now that I’m divorced and no longer working a corporate gig, it pains me to think a Valley single would only look inside a high-tech company for a mate. I’ve lunched at Google, and know there are beautiful, intelligent, confident women there looking specifically to date a Google engineer. Don’t they know, successful engineers work long hours? (I know, I used to be one.)
(Quick random thought: If women are so intuitive, why do they even read Cosmo? Couldn’t they just intuit where to meet a great guy like me? I’m right here, ladies, trying to figure out where to hunt for you.)
I suppose the odds of a single woman meeting a guy at the Apple Store are high. But will he be the guy? Doesn’t seem likely. My self-serving advice to Cosmo’s female readers - move here (the weather is great!), cycle or run at lunch (like I do), shop at my local grocery and produce market, grab coffee at my local Peet’s. And be sure to enjoy an occasional glass of wine at a nearby restaurant bar.
- Calling All Matchmakers
- What’s More Natural Than Nature? – Confessions of a Serial Online Dater, part 3
- How To Pick-Up a Woman in Front of Your Son
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