New to the City | Ways to Make Friends & Attract Lovers into your Life!

Dear Amy, 

I‘m 34 years old, in tech, and recently moved to San Francisco from the Mid West. I’m a pretty simple girl with honest values- think cornbread, apple pie, and balancing my checkbook every night before bed! 

 

Being new to the city and a city in general (always lived in pretty small towns), I signed up for a few different online dating sites. What I seem to keep running into is that I struggle feeling the chemistry with these guys but overall, they are really nice yet not for me. The good girl Mid West part of me hates to let them down after a date and share I’m just not feeling it. Is it OK to keep some as friends and how do I do that? 

 

A:  Welcome to the Bay Area. I am huge into telling friends and clients to always do at least 2 dates to really see if that chemistry can develop. My question to you is, are you giving each of these chaps a fair chance or writing them off too quickly. Remember that chemistry can grow in all sorts of funny ways and in order to see if there is something there, you need to go out a couple of times. If you follow my plan and do two dates and still feel nothing, by all means you can keep whomever you like as a friend. The question is, will he want to?! Rejection on whatever level is a sensitive subject and not easy for guys to handle with their ego in the way.   

A girl who is new to the city can never have enough good friends in her life, so one way to go about this is to pay him the biggest and most genuine compliment you can after your second date. Do this in person and not over email and definitely not text.

After the compliment, pose a question to him, inquiring if he is feeling the chemistry. Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. Get a conversation going. Then go in with the “I’m not entirely sure if the romance thing is there for me 100% but being new to the Bay Area, I’d like to keep you around, even set you up with a friend at some point. What do you think about that?” 

After you do this, your plan of action to not only keep him as a new friend but instantaneously get your name on the social map in the city is to be hostess with the mostess.

 

Our featured song for this entry is Sarah Vaughan Whatever Lola Wants by Gotan Project. This is a great song to get you into the party mood and to crank up at your soiree.

After your conversation with him, immediately get to work and don’t lose any momentum. Plan a festive and intimate party with him.

Have him invite 2 professional guy friends (if you are 34, their age is max early 40’s) and those guys invite 2 professional girls (ideally under 40) and those girls invite a friend each. Have everyone collaborate over email and each person brings an appetizer and bottle of wine under $20 from around the world. 

You host the party on a Friday or Saturday night and make sure your home is sparkling clean, candles lit, fun music on, and ready for your new friends party!  In doing this, you will meet new friends, possibly meet a cute new guy who you will feel that chemistry with, and feel welcome in your new city by the Bay!

The email invitation reads something like this: 

Who: Amanda Smith and Craig Baylor

What: Drink your way around the world and meet new friends for some networking, friendships, and fun

Where: Amanda’s new city apartment on Jackson street.

When: September 22nd at 6:00pm

Why: Everyone needs a reason to have fun after a long work week and I’m new to the city!

Please bring a bottle of white or red wine under $20 and it must be from out of the US. Think Australia, New Zealand, South America,

Iceland?!  Feel free to bring an appetizer too. I will be making my favorite artichoke dip and savory cheese fondue as well.

Please bring a friend of the opposite sex too!

Parking is grim, so cab if you can or roll the dice with parking.

See you soon!

Kindly,

Amanda and Craig

If you try this, you are guaranteed an entertaining night and to get on the social grid. You will be considered by these new friends to be a sophisticated catch, who is sweet, social, friendly, and smart.

The word will buzz around and next thing you know, the boys will be calling.  This social strategy for meeting new people could be applied to even those who are in graduate school programs at Stanford University. What a great way to meet new prospects for friendships and love!

And no concerns if you have a tiny apartment. At the end of the day, your guests will be thankful for the invitation and don’t care about a small space. You can move tables, chairs, stand around, ask the guys to help move furniture if needed. No excuses! Now get party planning and report back to amy@linxdating.com.  I want an invite too! 😉

Amy I can’t meet a good guy! Help!

Dear Amy !  My 28-year-old daughter saw your article on ABC news on July 10, 2012 and was very impressed.  I viewed the link she emailed to me and am very impressed as well. …she just cannot meet a good man…she recently went to one of those speed dating situations and all the men were sub-par and only interested in you know what right now …she is way over the top too good for that messiness…and also extremely well-educated and pretty….hope to hear from you.  

Dear new friend,

What a great mom to write me on behalf of your lovely daughter!

I would advise your daughter to strongly look at the ways she is going about meeting men. The speed date thing is definitely “hit” or “miss.” I’m proud of her that she put herself out there like that and now understands the results can be dicey. Time to move on! Don’t waste time going to more.

Take half a day and in a quiet place really have her think about the types of men she envisions herself with. Are they sporty? Are they intellectual? Are they into the culinary arts? Is he a dog or cat lover? Any town is guaranteed to have men living in it and good ones too! I swear!  The question becomes, where would her type of future hubbie hang out?

After she has put her thoughts on paper,  I would ask her to consider starting to go to the places that these men might be at. If thoughts of a Bill Gates-esque man sends her over-the-moon with school girl giddiness, time to head to every computer science lecture in town, bookstores, and even heading to the local college to see if she can drop in a lecture- with the professors permission. Be aggressive! Ask questions! The world is her oyster!

As she is in these new environments, your daughter needs to dress the part (and genuinely feel good about herself) confidentially smile and say hello to each and every person she meets, and establish good eye contact. Every potential suitor loves the idea of a confident and happy woman. Who wouldn’t want to be around that type of person?!

This advice is very basic but the actual application of doing this will result in a seismic shift in her personal life. Finding a good, genuine, normal, commitment (amen!) minded man is actually much easier than many of us think! 

I was emailing with a dear client today and she reminded me that I had suggested she check out a local cafe here in Palo Alto (as I had thought the intellectual and good type of guy she would ultimately desire might be stationed there reading or on laptop with cappuccino.)

Turns out, the first guy she chatted with ends up being her now fantastically brilliant Stanford prof beau!  I love this! She listened, she entered the right type of place and next thing she knows, a first date (and perhaps last first date she ever has) is lined up!

This lesson I have shared is to place yourself in the right environment. In doing so, you will see a change. Your prince is not going to show up on your doorstep. You MUST go out and find him. Once in the right environment, your prince will undoubtedly pursue you, yet you must be there for OPPORTUNITY to happen. 

Now go get that pad of paper and have at it with your dream type! Have fun on your quest!

Zee Creep Who Knows A Little Too Much

We’ve all been there, I’m pretty sure of it. On a first date where that guy or that girl aka “zee creep who knows a little too much” has done their due diligence on you thanks to the world wide web, or simply put zee internet.

I‘ll admit, when I was out there dating, it was so the temping to pull up what seemed for some of these guys to be archive, after archive, of pure fabulous deliciousness DATA. I wasn’t one of those who mentioned these things on my dates, ok maybe once or twice, but more “that girl” who knew a fair amount about him and sort of nodded my head as she shared about growing up in the south, attending so and so school, and getting this first job at fill in the blank– simply cause I already knew. Geez! So I learned over the years that maybe that isn’t such a great thing to do after all and take pleasure in knowing less.

I tell my clients to not Google one another and definitely don’t FB your dates. I could write countless blog posts about it but a little mystery when dating is a really good thing and important. Case in point, why we don’t give last names anymore and try to keep much of the actual introduction totally private, under the mantra of less is more. 

Too much information exists for people to read about who they are going out with. Some people happen to be really good about not having an “identity” on the internet and others can’t help it. Either the nature of their job, tags in photo sharing sights, the list goes on. Try not Googling your date ahead of time and keeping the experience to be as bling date as it can get. Maybe you will feel more nerves walking into the date with less information. On the other hand, maybe it’s best that you don’t know everything out there, including the photos of his or her ex smothered all over FB.