Anyone who has read Emma or seen its modern day movie counterpart, Clueless, is all too aware that well-meaning matchmakers’ plans can go horribly awry. Sometimes, however, they can be quite successful. Our closest friends can often see qualities in ourselves that we cannot. Sometimes an outside party is better at knowing what type of person we’d be happy with than we are, simply because we’re blinded by what we think would be best for us. So when your friend offers to fix you up, you shouldn’t immediately turn him or her down. Of course, you shouldn’t blindly accept that friend’s offer, either. You need to contemplate just how well this friend really knows you, and then ask them some important questions about the person they’re hoping to match with you.
It’s important to asses your friendship with this matchmaker before you say yes or no to them. Is this person someone you consider to be a close friend, or a casual acquaintance? You need to be certain that your friend is someone who knows you really well. If they don’t, they could be setting you up with someone who is seriously mismatched with you. That doesn’t mean that your friend has to be someone who has known you since you were little kids. It just means that you should only let a friend find you a date if they’re truly close to you. If this friend isn’t the type of person you regularly confide in, they don’t know you well enough to successfully match you with someone.
Once you’ve deemed your friend a worthy matchmaker, you should make sure to ask them some smart questions about the potential date they’ve found for you. How long has your friend known this person, and how did they meet each other? What qualities does this guy or girl have that your friend feels makes them a good match for you? Do they know anything about this potential match’s past dating life? If you don’t like their answers, or if they don’t seem to know enough to give you an answer, it’s time to think twice. You should really only allow yourself to be matched up with someone that your friend knows well. They don’t necessarily need to know your potential date as well as they know you, but they shouldn’t be casual acquaintances, either. It’s fairly questionable if they can’t tell you at least a little bit of their dating history. It’s even worse if they seem to gloss over it. That could mean they’re hiding a promiscuous or unsavory past that they know you’d disapprove of. Your friend should at least be able to tell you if this potential date has had a girlfriend or boyfriend or two within the last couple of years.
If you’re certain that your friend is a trustworthy confidant, and you’re satisfied with the answers to you questions, move forward with the date. If you’re open to a full-on blind date, make sure to meet them at a public place. Have an excuse to leave ready, just in case the date bombs. If you’re too uncomfortable to jump into a blind date, ask your friend to help you set up a meeting in a group setting. Throw a small party or dinner at your place and have your friend bring Mr. or Ms. Match along. If that doesn’t work for you, suggest a night out with a small group of friends. Just make sure that you all go somewhere where you can talk, otherwise you won’t really get to know the person. Also, try to keep the amount of people involved small enough to feel intimate, but not so small that it’s awkward. If only you, your friend, and the possible match go out, it will feel weird and contrived. If there are more than six to eight people, though, you won’t get very much one-on-one time to talk.
No matter how you meet the potential date, make sure to give your friend feedback afterwards. Be honest, otherwise they might keep trying to match you up with the wrong kind of guy or girl. If the match doesn’t go well, you can also feel free not to use this friend for matchmaking purposes again. They won’t be hurt if they really care about you.
In our busy, modern world, it can be surprisingly difficult to meet the “The One.” Frankly, it can be pretty difficult to meet someone worth a second date. Yet many people manage to find their great loves, which is proof enough that it can be done. What if you’re having a rough patch, though? Instead of assuming that there’s something wrong with you, you might want to start questioning the places where you’ve been trying to meet potential dates. Certain kinds of people frequent certain kinds of places. If you’ve been meeting the wrong kind of person over and over, you’re probably looking for love quite literally in all the wrong places.
There are a handful of common places that people meet new love interests; school, work and bars or clubs are the most typical locations. School makes sense if you’re lucky enough to find your true love early on. If you’re both in the same major at college, or join the same club or organization, you’re bound to have common interests and lots to talk about. The workplace creates a similar environment, wherein lots of people with common work interests are together day after day. As long as you’re not breaking any company rules, it’s a pretty sensible place to meet someone. Bars and clubs can be a bit more troubling, though. If you’re looking for a simple hook up, meeting someone at a bar or dance club makes sense. The drinks are flowing, the vibe is fun, and lots of singles go out with their friends looking to meet people. However, these aren’t the kinds of places where you can have a good conversation or really get to know someone. It’s also hard to tell if you’re being sized up as a one night stand or not. Furthermore, if you’re going to the wrong type of bar or club, you’re probably meeting people with whom you aren’t ultimately compatible. If you want to make a serious connection, get out of the bars and go to places that speak to your interests.
There’s a surprising logic to figuring out where your search should begin. Are you a bookworm? Try the library or a book store. Do you love being outdoors? Head over to the park. If you’re not comfortable striking up a conversation with an attractive stranger while browsing through novels, don’t fret. Instead, look for activities that will help you meet others. The library or book store may have a book club night you can join. Your local park probably hosts all sorts of adult sports leagues that you could sign up to play in, along with groups for runners, walkers, and more. In a way, this allows you to recreate the environment you had in school. You’re thrown into a group with a lot of strangers who have common interests, not unlike when you take a class in college. Thanks to the internet, you can find all sorts of clubs and associations for grown-ups. Best of all, you’ll enjoy the bonus of making a lot of new friends. Volunteering is another great way to meet a potential romantic partner. If you love animals, volunteer at a shelter. If you like to garden, volunteer to help out with clean up and gardening at the park or another public green space. You’ll be sure to meet like-minded volunteers, and you’ll have the added benefit of making a good first impression through the good deeds you’re doing.
In addition to seeking out places and activities related to your interests, you might be surprised at how much potential everyday places can have. When you’re at the grocery store or waiting on line at the post office, don’t let the drudgery get in the way of a potential match. It can be easy to zone in on the task at hand and miss an opportunity to meet someone, so try being more aware of who all is around you. Next time you’re at the laundromat, head over to the available washer beside your cute neighbor and strike up a conversation. People are more likely to be themselves in everyday situations like these. In a bar, everyone is putting on airs, attempting to attract others, but when you’re on line at the supermarket, no one’s trying too hard. Another bonus of all of these places and situations, from heading to the library to volunteering at the animal shelter, is that there isn’t drinking involved. Beer goggles and bad, drunken decisions happen at bars or clubs, not when you’re doing your laundry or working out with your local Road Runners chapter. You’re much more likely to make a true love connection in situations like these.
Office romance is a funny thing. Put together a bunch of men and women for hours on end, five days a week, and some of those men and women are bound to develop feelings for each other. Yet every company’s HR department has all sorts of rules and regulations about dating within the office. Workplace relationships are often seen as taboo. Is it ever okay to date a coworker? If so, how can you make sure that your relationship doesn’t cost you your job?
If you find yourself attracted to a coworker, get your facts straight before you make a move on him or her. Consult your company’s HR guidelines to see what kind of policy they have in place regarding dating coworkers. Whether they have an established set of rules or not, it’s typically a good idea for direct reports and supervisors to avoid dating each other. This means that you shouldn’t date your boss or anyone who considers you to be their immediate boss. Some people would take that rule a step farther and say that you shouldn’t date anyone that reports to anyone under you or anyone who’s directly above your boss. Basically, whether you’re a director who’s fallen for the SVP that your boss, the vice president, reports to, or you’re the SVP in love with the director, your relationship will seem questionable. Your boss (the VP) may feel uncomfortable reprimanding you for fear that his boss, who is also your S.O., will punish him for doing so. Likewise, he might hesitate to promote you for fear it will appear to be favoritism. In a situation like this, if your feelings are deep and you think this relationship has potential, you need to discuss it with the object of your affection, and then one of you should try to find a job elsewhere. At the very least, one of you should attempt to transfer into a different department wherein neither of you will be reporting to each other in any way.
If neither of you reports to each other, you can feel fairly comfortable starting your relationship. Whether you’re in the same department and on the same level, or in different departments on different levels, no one else at the company will have to worry that one of you will be sleeping your way to the top. However, you really need to be sure that the coworker you’re about to ask out shares your feelings. You’re going to have to work together whether they accept your request for a date or not, so you don’t want to experience awkwardness as a result of rejection. Once you’re pretty positive that your coworker is interested in you, confess your feelings and ask them out. If you both feel the first couple of dates go well, you should plan a time to talk to an HR person. Go together and let the HR person know that the two of you have begun a relationship, and you just want to make sure that there won’t be any issues as a result. Then you’ll need to let your other coworkers know. There’s no need to round everyone up and hold a meeting, but you should both feel free to tell a few of the other employees that you’re friends with. Word will get around, but it will be better if you are the ones who started the word in the first place. That way there won’t be room for any bizarre rumors to pop up.
A time may come when your office romance begins to go south. If the two of you ultimately break up, you’ll need to be extra careful about how you act at work. If there’s way too much anger between the two of you, one of you will have to find a job elsewhere. Hopefully, though, you’ll be able to avoid each other in the office as much as possible, and keep any drama out of the workplace. Whether it succeeds or fails, the best way to conduct an on-the-job romance is to be as responsible and open about it as possible. Clearing things with HR and cluing in your other coworkers will relieve a lot of stress, leaving you both more time to enjoy your relationship.
