By Amy Andersen, Founder and CEO of Linx Dating
One of the most common things I hear from singles is, “Amy, I just don't meet anyone.” And after more than two decades as a matchmaker, one of my first questions is usually very simple: What does your week actually look like?
We tend to think meeting someone is something that happens to us. We imagine walking into the right coffee shop at precisely the right moment, locking eyes with someone across a restaurant, or magically being seated next to our future spouse on an airplane. Those things certainly happen. But I wouldn't build a dating strategy around them.
If you're serious about meeting someone, one of the smartest things you can do is examine how much opportunity you're actually creating in your everyday life.
Most of us are creatures of habit. We go to the same gym, drive the same route, work with the same people, order from the same restaurants and socialize with the same handful of friends. There is nothing wrong with routine. Routine makes life comfortable and efficient. But efficiency isn't particularly helpful when you're trying to introduce new people into your world.
Change Your Geography
I have a little ritual that I love. Once a month, I try to do a Friday dinner in a different neighborhood. If I'm going somewhere where I have friends nearby, I'll reach out and say, “I'm going to be in your neighborhood Friday. Come meet me.”
It gives us an excuse to see each other when we might otherwise go another six months saying, “We really need to get together.” Sometimes they bring someone. Sometimes we run into people they know. Sometimes nothing remotely romantic happens, but I've spent an evening somewhere different, strengthened a friendship and expanded my world a little.
That's the point.
You don't need to move cities to shake up your dating life. Sometimes you need to drive fifteen minutes in a different direction.
If you're always in Palo Alto, have dinner in San Francisco. If you're always in the Marina, go somewhere completely different. Try a new hiking trail. Take the workout class at another location. Attend the museum event instead of saying you'll catch the exhibition another time. Have dinner at the bar instead of taking your food home.
Small changes create new intersections.
Ask Your Friends to Bring Someone
Here's another incredibly easy idea: host a dinner.
Invite a few friends and ask everyone to bring one person the rest of the table doesn't know. If you're single, you can even say, “Bring a great single friend.”
It doesn't need to feel like matchmaking. In fact, I think it works better when it doesn't.
The goal is simply to widen the circle.
Think about the mathematics of your social network. Your five closest friends may each know hundreds of people you have never met. Their colleagues have friends. Their neighbors have siblings. Their college roommate has a newly single friend. Their tennis partner knows someone who just moved to town.
There are entire networks of people sitting immediately outside your existing world.
Yet so many singles spend enormous amounts of time scrolling through strangers on an app while never asking the people who know and love them, “Who do you know?”
Say Yes to the Invitation
I also think we need to become a little less precious about invitations.
Not every event has to sound amazing.
Go to the birthday dinner where you only know the host. Attend the charity event. Show up at the friend's barbecue. Go to the opening. Accept the dinner invitation even if you're tired.
You don't need to become a professional socializer or exhaust yourself seven nights a week. But if you've been saying that you want to meet someone while consistently declining opportunities to meet people, something has to change.
Sometimes the most important person at the party isn't your future partner.
It might be the woman you start talking to who says, “You have to meet my brother.”
That's how real-world networks work.
Take Care of the Relationships You Already Have
There is another part of community that I think gets overlooked when we talk about dating: maintaining our existing relationships.
I care deeply about repairing disconnects when they happen. If I sense something is wrong with a friend, I don't like letting it sit there and fester. I'd rather call, meet in person and talk through it. Friendships matter enormously to me, and like romantic relationships, they require maintenance.
This has an indirect relationship to dating that I think is quite profound.
People with rich social lives aren't necessarily people with hundreds of friends. Often, they're people who take care of the relationships they already have. They remember birthdays. They make the dinner happen. They pick up the phone. They apologize. They invite people along. They introduce friends to one another.
Over time, those relationships create community.
And community creates possibility.
Become the Person Who Connects People
One of the best things you can do for your own social life is stop thinking exclusively about who other people can introduce you to.
Start connecting people yourself.
Introduce the two friends who should know each other professionally. Invite the new neighbor to dinner. Bring the recently divorced friend along rather than assuming they don't want to come. If you meet two people who would make a fantastic couple, introduce them.
Become a connector.
I have obviously built an entire career around introductions, but I believe this principle extends far beyond matchmaking. When you generously connect people, people naturally begin thinking about connections for you.
Your network becomes more alive.
Stop Searching So Hard and Start Living Wider
There is a strange paradox in modern dating. We have more technological access to single people than at any other point in history, yet many people feel their actual worlds have become smaller.
Maybe part of the answer is surprisingly old-fashioned.
Have dinner.
Invite someone.
Walk somewhere new.
Talk to the person next to you.
Call the friend you've been meaning to call.
Try another neighborhood.
Accept the invitation.
Host something yourself.
And when your friend asks whether they can bring someone you don't know, say absolutely.
None of these things guarantees you'll meet the love of your life Friday night. That's not the point.
You're creating a life with more intersections, more friendships, more conversations, more invitations and more possibility. And even before love enters the picture, that's a richer way to live.
At Linx, I talk frequently about being intentional in love. Intentionality doesn't mean obsessing over finding someone. Sometimes it simply means putting yourself in places where something new has a chance to happen.
You don't always need a new dating app. Sometimes you just need a new neighborhood, a bigger dinner table and the willingness to say yes.
