Well-Being

Adventures in Dating: Where to Meet Your Soul Mate

Dating is always an adventure, but in BC it's gotten a bad rap. So here's some advice from a recently relocated Winnipegger

By Blair Kaplan /

Credit: Flickr/eqqman

Coffee shops are a great place to spy potential mates

BC’s got a bit of a bad rap when it comes to dating. So here are some tips from a recently relocated Winnipegger

Eight months ago, my boyfriend and I met on Lavalife. I was looking through the list of men in the Vancouver area, saw his picture and thought, “Whoa, he is good looking.” Then I looked at his age and gasped, “Eek, he is a bit too old for me (11 years older to be exact).”

But when I noticed he was from my hometown, Winnipeg, I decided to send him a message. We exchanged messages for about a week and then he called when he said he would call. We made plans to go for coffee on a Saturday afternoon, and the date lasted 13 hours. It was perfect.

While online dating worked out for me, not everyone is comfortable with the medium. The age-old question for singles is still “where is the best place to meet your mate?” And the truth is that the answer is different for everyone.

It took many dating adventures before I met my perfect man. But I’ve always had the best luck with online dating. I find it a lot like online shopping (with only a little bit of buyer’s remorse).

Online Dating

There are a few ways to go about online dating. You can spend hours on Facebook looking through friends of friends of friends’ pictures trying to figure out if someone is single, or you can try a dating site.

I’ve had the best luck on Lavalife and found the men are more serious there. You can specify the type of person you’d like to meet (age, location, hobbies, etc.), check out their photo and learn a lot about them before committing to a meeting. I found it easy and efficient.

Meeting Your Mate in Real Life

If you prefer the more traditional route to meeting your mate, try the following spots:

  • Networking: As an entrepreneur, I find it’s hard to meet men at work because I work for myself. I do a lot of networking, which allowed me to mingle while I was single.
  • Yoga Class: BC is a hotbed of yoga activity, and this is another place I looked to meet a man because I figured it would be great to have a boyfriend who would love to come to yoga with me. I think the trick would be to show up to class early or stay late to strike up that much anticipated conversation.
  • Coffee Shop: Have you ever caught the eye of a cutie from across the local coffee shop? This is one of the easiest places to strike up a conversation. Try it out this February at Blenz during the Red Band Project.

So, get out there and turn dating into an adventure. 

Blair Kaplan is the owner and CEO of Living Free Canada, Canada’s online health and wellness community which features elite coupons from companies that reflect a fun and healthy lifestyle. She began writing at an early age with a column in the Winnipeg Parent Newsmagazine and has been published in various publications around North America. She fell in love with blogging in May 2009. E-mail Blair.