Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve tried (and worn out) all the usual places (bars, clubs, Starbucks, Whole Foods), and you still haven’t found Mr or Miss Right yet. But have you tried Meetup.com yet? It’s a network of 46,000 groups in 3600 cities (as of this writing) who get together (meet!) because of a shared interest in something: French wine, tennis, owning Boston terriers, vegetarianism, solar energy, physics, photography, Mennonites, watching “Heroes” together, investing, flipping houses, screenwriting, speaking Klingon… I could type all day and I couldn’t list it all. Let me put it this way: if you can think of it, someone’s created a Meetup group for it.

So how does this benefit you, the dating, looking for a date? Piece of cake! You go to Meetup.com, locate a group (or three, or five) that you find interesting, that’s something that you either like to do already, or better yet, something you’d like to learn to do, like speak Spanish (there are plenty of “learn to” meetups). Join that group (or those groups), and carefully fill out your profile and upload one or more photos. (I’ll explain why this is important in a moment.) You’ll be notified when your meetup is getting together, and get ready! Then start attending meetups… where you’ll be making friends (who have friends who are potential date material), as well as people of the opposite sex, who are potential date material, too! And you already have something in common: the topic of the meetup! (Assuming you didn’t go to the “Klingon Speakers” meetup out of morbid curiosity, I mean.) So right off the bat, you have a topic for conversation, even if you’re a shy type who can’t normally think up an opening line by yourself.

About that profile bit I mentioned: Meetup members can message each other, too, so if someone spots your photo and reads your profile and thinks, “Hmm; this one seems interesting,” you might luck out and find yourself with a note along the lines of, “Hey! I just read your profile; you have the cutest dimple in your chin! I’m also an analyst, and I’m also into whitewater kayaking and Kopi Luwak coffee. May I buy you a cup this weekend?”

One final word on the subject of Meetup: it has more meetups for singles than you can shake a stick at. If you can’t find a date via Meetup, then check to see whether you have a pulse (and if you don’t, then join the Mortician’s meetup in your city).

Have fun, and let me know how it goes for you!