The Ultimate Guide To Meeting New People Without Using A Dating App
As a dating coach, nothing is more exciting than watching my clients find their partners and get into loving, healthy relationships. There is certainly some true magic of the universe that I’ve been lucky enough to get to witness.
I personally have no opinion either way on dating apps.
Many of my clients do find their partners there — Hinge, Bumble, Tinder—and to this day are still together, and many of the women that come to me have no interest in using these apps. A lot of them have tried with no success, it’s drained their self-esteem, and it has turned out to be a huge waste of time.
While there’s plenty of mindset work that can be done to approach them in a more empowered way, I’m also here to say it’s not the only way to meet the future love of your life.
If you don’t want to date online, you simply need a different strategy.
I’m going to break down a real life case study (shared with permission) of how one of my clients did just that. She met her partner out in the world doing what she loved. Which was, playing golf. Here are some things to know if you’d like to steal her strategy.
The Law of Probability
There are single people everywhere. In fact, there are 328 million people in the United States. Let’s assume half of them are men and another percentage are single. That’s still A LOT of people and A LOT of potential partners.
Single people are everywhere doing the same exact things you are. Buying groceries, going to the drug store, walking their dogs, grabbing a coffee, taking a walk break outside during the day.
Plain and simple, there’s an abundance of people out there to run into and meet. Understanding the law of probability, however, is exactly what my client leveraged. She joined a golf club and showed up every single week. She started out going once or twice a week, then she started having dinner on Wednesdays, then she started playing in tournaments on the weekend. She did this for 4 months straight, no matter what. She showed up to play each and every week, multiple times a week. By month four, she met her now-partner.
You increase your chances of meeting someone if you show up somewhere consistently. For example, say you go to the same coffee shop every day. Depending on when you go—time of day, day of week—you may or may not run into someone. It’s totally up to luck.
If you go to the same coffee shop three, four, five times a week, you’re increasing your chances of meeting someone. You’re there more. Maybe you run into a regular. Maybe you get chatting with the Barista and they learn you’re single. Maybe you decide to start bringing a book and reading there and someone comes up and asks what you’re reading. Maybe you bring your dog there.
Takeaway: If you want to meet someone in real life, pick a place you love going and love spending time. Maybe it’s the dog park, maybe it’s your local coffee shop, maybe it’s an art gallery, maybe it’s your boxing gym. Commit to showing up every week and playing the long game. Network and get to know the employees and the regulars. Show your face. The muse favors the committed soul. If you don’t want to use a dating app, get comfortable with doing this instead.
The Art of Doing for Your Own Pleasure
Back to my client. When we first started coaching, we did a lot of work together reconnecting her to her joy, her desire. Clearing space and making room for her to do the things that she loved again. This required setting boundaries with work and other people in her life so that she could have space for herself again. It required that she really and truly committed to making herself a priority.
Through this work, she uncovered a desire to get better at golf. To master the practice for her own sense of accomplishment and pride and to have a new hobby and activity. She did not pick golf because she thought, “Maybe I’ll meet a future partner playing golf”; she decided to invest time and energy learning golf simply because she thought it would bring her joy and enhance her life. She had no agenda, she was simply spending time doing something for her own pleasure.
It was a massive act of choosing herself and not caring what other people thought or how they wanted her to live her life. It was a big signal to the universe that said, “I like myself, I like the life I’m building, I’m willing to commit and show up for myself in this way.”
The universe delivered. While quietly holding the desire for a new relationship through our coaching together, she continued to show up for herself weekly, and as a result, she was magnetic. She felt good about herself, she was confident, and she was in alignment and authentic to her true self.
This was a magical cocktail that made her attractive, radiant, and someone that her new partner wanted to get to know and pursue.
Takeaway: Reorient your entire dating approach. Get rid of trying to be anything for anyone else, get rid of strategies, rules, games. Get quiet. Learn what makes you happy and fiercely pursue it. Show up for it and yourself like it’s the most important thing in your life. Like it’s your only job. Uncover your joy and watch what happens.
The Importance of Approachability
This last piece is where the coaching she received through working together worked its magic. You can show up somewhere every day for months, but if you’re not approachable, it’s unlikely you’ll meet someone.
Your energy is everything. Are you distracted? Are you frazzled? Are you closed off? Do you give off judgemental vibes?
This client did a ton of work creating a consistent morning routine that included mindfulness and attention cultivating practices. She became more grounded and still in her everyday life. We also uncovered and cleared out stories she was telling herself about men, about dating culture, and about her past relationships. She dug deep and looked at her own patterns with previous partners and others in her life.
She became more accepting of herself and others felt safer in her presence and wanted to be around her. She became open, available, and present with the people in her life by becoming disciplined with her attention. She became confident and self-assured by consistently reminding herself of all she offered in a relationship and embodying the qualities in herself first of someone she’d want to bring into her life.
She became magnetic from the inside out. In combination with making decisions from a place of pursuing her own pleasure and filling her own cup up and consistently showing up for herself, she activated the trifecta of an in-person, aligned, partner-in-crime meeting.
Takeaway: Feeling good is an inside job. True presence, a healthy mindset and set of beliefs, and becoming more confident in oneself are all skills that can be learned and muscles that can be strengthened—if you’re willing to do the work and show up consistently.
Whether you want to use a dating app or not isn’t the point. The point is that whatever strategy you use it has to be one that you feel turned on about and aligned with. You can be showing up everyday on a dating app with a crappy mindset and giving off low vibrational energy and you can be going to the same gym every day and be distracted, judgmental, and unapproachable.
Before you complain about dating apps—that you never meet anyone quality or that there’s no one out there — check yourself. Are you doing things for your own enjoyment, are you showing up for yourself consistently, are you self-aware and disciplined with your mindset and inner dialogue?
There’s a million ways to make a million dollars and there’s a million ways to meet your future partner. Your openness to the possibility and the space you create for them to come in is what will ultimately make the difference.