Under their events calendar for Jan 13, 2009: "Plantation Trivia."

Oh my

Dating sites prey on the desperate and pliable?
Don't forget the single and sex-deprived.
BTW: PlentyOfFish.com is free. Just sayin'.

@UTC: There is a city in Florida named Plantation. Im assuming thats what it applies to, since other events have city names as well.

Just use meetup.com

I'm guessing that Brandon lives in the Washington, DC area given the tags for this article. Here in Boston where I live I was a member of the Boston Ski & Sports Club (www.bssc.com) for a number of years and still check out their events from time to time. Although their primary focus is on sports they also run a number of purely social events. I've played on recreational co-ed softball, volleyball, kickball teams. I've taken golf lessons. I've gone on ski trips, harbor cruises, etc. They're all great ways to meet people in relaxed atmospheres. Brandon should do a little searching in the DC area (or wherever he is) and see if there's a similar sports/social club where he is.

If you're already in one of those major metro areas they listed, I suspect there's TONS of stuff you can do without signing up for anything. The local "alternative" paper(s) usually list all of it together. Or the Friday supplement to the local paper. There are so many tour operators and groups doing stuff regularly, it seems odd to get an unnecessary middleman involved.

Of course I'm not one to talk. I met my wife while shooting tequila. It was impromptu.

@IphtashuFitz: That sounds awesome... checking it out right now. Sounds like a good excuse to actually use the new skis instead of just looking at them in the corner!

Places to find "high-quality" singles:
-Professional organizations
-CoC/Jaycees-type organizations (community business oriented)
-Junior League/Rotary-type organizations (community volunteer oriented; the only trick is finding one with a membership demographic in your general age group)

I'm sure church, alumni clubs, museum singles' nights, etc., are all very good too. But you meet a broader group of people in a community organization, and even though you meet lots of married folks, they have single friends. (Even in a single-sex organization like Junior League -- plenty of those women have husbands, and those husbands have single male friends.) Normal ones. Without major malfunctions. Pre-screened by your friends, who are more reliable than a dating service.

Great, yet another thing that won't help me find a GF.

@Ash78:

"Of course I'm not one to talk. I met my wife while shooting tequila."

If that were true, it would have been a public service.

[daysofarabianlives.wordpress.com]

@weakdome: One great thing about the way the BSSC works is that you don't even need to be a member to attend most of their events. An annual membership for an individual is about $65 and you get a monthly newsletter that lists all upcoming events, from league sports like softball to day/weekend/week-long ski trips to wine tasting, dancing, etc. If you sign up for an event then it costs one price for members and slightly more for non-members. If you do four or five events a year the price difference pays for itself. But you can always just sign up for a few events as a non-member and check them out with no strings attached, and become a member later on if you want.

@weakdome: Shameless plug for OkCupid.com (which is also free).

@Tues_SteveDave: Last summer we started throwing "Interesting People" parties. Not our best friends, or one particular group of friends, but we invite people we think are interesting. A mix of people we know well, people we don't know very well but want to get to know, people who are new in town, etc. We invite singles, couples, and we tell people to feel free to bring a friend -- but they have to be interesting. :)

We have them on our patio, and we throw them potluck, so it's very casual. (And outside, if people have kids and can't get a sitter, their kids can run around out back.) We get people from 22 and fresh out of school to people in their late 50s. Laywers, doctors, writers, students, at-home moms, musicians, military, marketing execs ... just a crazy mix of people.

They are far and away the funnest parties we've ever thrown and everybody always says how fun they are. And, yes, the singles meet people. And people are so flattered when you invite them to an "interesting people" potluck that they don't think it's weird that you don't know them very well, so you can invite some chick you WANT to get to know. :)

But where can I meet other shady singles?

@cynical_bastard: college bars?

Events and Adventures is horrible! I made the mistake of joining a few years back. The first couple of events that I attended were fun. However, the next event I attended was terrible. The Events and Adventures 'host' for the activity was a total bitch and really ruined the event for me.

I attempted to cancel and was told that I would be sent to collections if I didn't pay my remaining balance. I talked to a number of managers, one of whom offered to reimburse me the cost of the event. He never delivered on this promise. I paid the money because I didn't want to go to collections, but I also never attended another event. This was not money well spent.

@cynical_bastard: You don't have to find them. They find you.

These places like to get as much financial data on you as they can before they give a price. The price heavily depends on how much they think they can soak you for. I remember talking to a similar place long ago and it was a similar story.

@Tues_SteveDave: SteveDave, I'm pretty sure your 14,000 rotating personalities have something to do with that.

@TracyHamandEggs: Ah, thank you. Still, were I paying a few grand, I don't think "townie trivia" would be my idea of a hoot and a half.

Also: For $3,000 you could probably get some real Elliot-Spitzer-Style lovin, not just the offhand chance of meeting someone in your area.

@IphtashuFitz:
Columbia Ski Club is a similar type of organization in the DC area, though it may not be too convenient for people from Northern Virginia. I've never been a member but know several people who are and who regularly attend their events.

Yeah, I heard that Events & Adventures commercial about 2 yrs ago and decided I wanted to try it out. They lost me when they wanted to set up an appointment to discuss prices. Great Expectations uses that excuse also, the high price supposedly keeps out the "riff-raff", but they do not gaurantee results.

Don't let this experience scare you away from online dating/dating services though. I've met a lot of great, quality people that way including my husband! Try OkCupid.com, it's free.

@weakdome: BTW: PlentyOfFish.com is free. Just sayin'.

Free and hilarious. You want to see how self-deluded some people are, search for people of "average" body type.

Average is the new morbidly obese.

@Eyebrows McGee: Interesting idea but unfortunately in my area there aren't very many "interesting" people. Doing something here involves either drinking at a bar or going out to eat, or going clubbing. Perhaps drugs or other illegal activities as well. All things I am not interested in in the least. When you ask people what they do this is what they respond with. Doing something like this would result in a drunkfest, and if there wasn't any liquor or beer, people would be gone within 30 min. God forbid you have an actual hobby, then you are considered weird and are automatically exiled.

Then if you get people with hobbies it usually consists of stuff like.. World of Warcraft. No offense to the people who play this game however if you get into a relationship with a warcraft addict things can get ugly pretty fast. Your better off alone.

Now I am a gamer and everything but I don't spend every waking minute playing video games, maybe an hour a day. I am also into eating healthy so I don't want to be dragged into restaurant after restaurant by people who want to "do something". Then I would get fat and not to mention eating out can get expensive especially when its something I don't even enjoy doing! Needless to say I don't fit the typical gamer stereotype, and when you ask for people with hobbies you usually get people who are into video games a little more on the extreme side, like 24/7.

@bonzombiekitty:

I second this suggestion. The vast majority of groups on meetup will be free to boot.

Basically the scam works like this: they get you to pay $2,095

No, no they don't.

/snort.

/could buy another camera lens for that kind of money.

@AstroPig7:

I've been actively participating on OKCupid for more than four years without any success. There are little statistics on your home page that tell you exactly how pathetic you are. If I could find a way to meet interesting people that works with my work schedule, that's worth a lot more than $2000 to me.

As far as I'm concerned, all personals sites are scams, even the free ones.

I'll just wait here for the prostitution joke I'm sure is coming.

@Eyebrows McGee: Word. The problem with singles' clubs is that the only guaranteed thing you have in common is that you're all unhappily single.

@Outrun1986: You cannot possibly be the only person in your area who has interests other than drinking, clubbing or WoW.

@cynical_bastard: Law school libraries. Of course, it only works if you're a law student.

@Canino: I didn't say it was any good. :) And yeah... I have looked through. It's... interesting, to say the least.
However, in their defense, isn't something like 60% of america overweight, therefore "average" body type probably IS overweight? (haha)

@InfiniTrent: Huh? According to my psych, there are only three.

@Eyebrows McGee: Sadly, I don't get to interact with that many people(~0) in real life who are either in my age range and/or are single. My latest attempt is putting a scrolling LED sign in my rear window advertising "SWM 30 ISO SWF" then a link to my website for contact info. Still no luck.

I found my wife in AA. Its worked out pretty well for me thus far

@Tues_SteveDave: The beauty of the interesting people party is they don't really have to be in your age range or single. Invite married friends and tell them to bring a friend. Invite older people, invite younger people. And then invite the hot chick you get to talking to at the bookstore. It's much less-threatening to say you're having an interesting people party to get to know people (and of COURSE she can bring her roommate!).

But if you're meeting that few people, I think you definitely need to join a volunteer organization or sports club or something. :) Or take a class. You'd probably be the only guy in the pot-throwing class. (Stained glass, surprisingly, turns out to be mostly men!)

@Eyebrows McGee: That is such a brilliant idea I may copy it. It would definitely be welcome around here.

@Outrun1986: That can't possibly be EVERYONE in your ENTIRE area.

"God forbid you have an actual hobby, then you are considered weird and are automatically exiled."

Find the other exiles. :)

(Also, my husband is a gamer and his gaming buddies LOVE it when I cook for them. They eat all my experiments, even the ones that don't come out so good. I expect your foodie friends, even if they're gamers, would be thrilled if you made them food.)

its still better than eharmony.

@Tues_SteveDave: It's mighty hard to click a link in a scrolling LED, no?

@cynical_bastard: _______ convention

Yahoo Personals success story here. Married 4 years now and have a son.

@floraposte: Please do! Then if I ever move near you, I'll know where to go to meet the interesting people. :D

One of our friends suggested we make a theme for the potluck (like "your dish must have at least three colors, prize for the most colors" or "celebrity dishes, like Britney Asparagus Spears"), because people would be creative and clever and get competitive, which would be a nice icebreaker, but we haven't tried that yet.

The other thing we've thought of doing is getting a local author to come do a reading of a chapter, or a local artist bring some works and talk for a little while, or calling the local uni and having a student jazz ensemble or renaissance music group or whatever come out and perform (backgroundy) for an hour in exchange for food. We haven't done it yet, but we thought it might be fun for a slightly more structured "interesting people party." Like an indoors winter one.

@UTC: Yeah you can attend trivia for free and hit on the disappointed singles that came there for the event and were let down.

@chipslave: Congrats! Another round on me, guys.

@weakdome: Let's not forget good old craigslist, sure you never quite know what to expect, but you're almost guaranteed to get an interesting story to tell your friends later.

@speedwell: Only in Soviet Russia.

Who has $2100 laying around to make an impulse decision such as this? And if you had $2100 burning a hole in your pocket why can't you get a date?

@Eyebrows McGee: If only they had such things here in Western MA. Normal People that is. Even at the so-called places to meet normal people there are weirdos.

Mail order bride, here I come! ;)

@Eyebrows McGee: I have a difficult time meeting people as well, but I'm not single. I'm just looking for friends. Basically, if you're a woman looking for friends, the guys think you're looking for "friends*wink, wink, nudge, nudge*" and the girls tend to either be shy or interested in meeting guys. I have a friend who throws parties occasionally, and I have met interesting people through her, but all of the people that I would make friends with tend to be too busy and already have too many friends to keep up with.