As the weekend approaches, do you ever find yourself thinking this on a Friday night?
“I hope someone invites me to something.”
The same girls you normally hang with invite you out to do the same things you end up doing every weekend (usually involving eating, happy hour, or some activity you just find yourself going along with). The group may even be co-ed, but it’s the same co-ed group you normally see. At some point you secretly hope you’ll meet new people. You probably have a mix of married friends, some elderly friends, and plenty of girlfriends, but you eventually recognize there’s one group largely missing. Why don’t you have more than a handful of male friends in your age range? You widen out to others, but seem to exclude men.
You know I asked some friends (:
One friend I asked …blanked out and stared off in the distance. I stared deeply into her eyes in amazement and saw the light bulb trying to go off…and then the wires didn’t quite connect. She’ll be back…
Some common responses included:
“I get invited to gatherings, but there aren’t many single guys”
“They (brothers) cancel when I invite them out”
“I don’t want to look desperate”
“There aren’t any guys in my area/ I know all of the guys in my area already”
I will address this comment in this post -“I get invited to gatherings, but there aren’t many single guys”
I get it. When I was single and wanting to meet more men, I went through the same thing. What really helped me to get unstuck from this was to be proactive and learn to create the scenarios I wanted to be in. This meant I didn’t leave it up to others Friday night hoping to get that invite to a gathering where there were 20 single men with Bibles who all looked like super heroes….not happening. I stopped leaving it up to others to reach out to me first and show an interest. I took responsibility for reaching out to new people, especially more men, and inviting new groups to hang with me doing things I enjoyed. This seemingly small shift really helped me to speed up meeting new friends in general.
I know what some of you are thinking….”There’s nothing to do in my area”. Sure there is. Here’s a list of some of my favorite places to find cool events at a discount happening in different areas:
Living Social – I love this site and use it all the time no matter what city I happen to be in. There is something for everyone here. It has different events you can pick from broken down by categories. I’ve found discounted tickets for horseback riding, wine tastings, escape rooms, local festivals, Cirque du Soleil, new restaurants, spas, and even go kart racing (sorry, no apple orchards ladies)
Groupon – This site is similar to Living Social. You can find anything from sports events to white water rafting.
Facebook Events – Facebook will show you all kinds of upcoming events in your area. Pick something fun and invite some new people along.
Travelzoo – This site is also similar to Living Social. It also lists some great budget friendly road trips.
Pick a site, find an event, and invite a group of new friends to hang out. I use these sites to find events wherever I travel to. Control the group…control the ratio.
