– by Jennifer Enchin –

Please share. It’s good karma

I can’t believe this is a thing, but it is. Dating in real life or “IRL” is making a comeback. People are tired of the flakes, the weirdos, and let’s not forget the emotionally unavailable train wrecks. When you date IRL, you are screening out the crazies and getting straight to the cool peeps who are actually worth spending time with. Oh, and cat fishing will become like a distant memory. In case you forgot how to do it, here are some tips to start dating in the real world.

1. Look Up

Instead of walking down the street with you head in your phone, look up! Look who’s walking by, who you see through that store window, who is cashing you out at the grocery store. Say hello! It can’t hurt. If anything you will brighten their day and you will increase your pool of potential dates.

2. Ask Your Friends for Their Rejects

You know what they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Your friends probably have tons of online dates that fizzled out. Why not get them to refer you as a potential suitor? This is assuming, of course, nothing weird or bad happened between them .(Presumably they wouldn’t be suggesting this individual if it had!) Hopefully most of the time they just agreed they should just be friends. You never know what might come of it!

3. Get in Touch with an Old Acquaintance

Contact one of your old co-workers, classmates who you had a bit of a thing for. Ok this may technically be “online” because you probably don’t have their number if it’s an old acquaintance, but at least you’re still keeping it in your real-life social circle. Maybe you saw something that day that reminded you of them and you were compelled to send a message. Try not to make it seem literally out of the blue. There should be a reason behind it. After you get talking, suggest meeting up and see where it goes from there.

4. Organize a Double Date

No one does double dates anymore, but they’re so much fun, and having your friend there will ease the awkwardness. Here’s how to engineer one of these suckers. If your friend is seeing someone regularly, get them to ask their date to bring a friend. Pick a fun activity where you can move around freely like bowling or a games night. Having dinner together might seem too “forced” and will put too much pressure on you and the friend who agreed to meet you. If you don’t end up liking each other in that way, you can still just enjoy the group hangout.

5. Have Multiple Social Circles

You can’t just hang out with the same old group of friends all the time and expect to get dates. The best way to remedy this is to plain and simply, do a lot of cool shit. Take some kind of weekly class or join a league, be it improv, life drawing, circuit training, volleyball or anything you think would have a decent amount of people attending. It’s good to do something long term because you’ll get to know each other and be more likely to want to hang out afterwards. If it’s just a drop in class, the chance of finding someone who is open to making friends is way lower. The more friends you have, the more potential friends – and real-life dates – you have.

Jennifer Enchin is a freelance writer living in the big city of Toronto. A self proclaimed musical theatre geek, philosopher and playwright, Jennifer spends most of her time in the rehearsal studio or dreaming up the next big hit.