I'd like a club lemon and a non-smoking seat away from the speakers please.

October 23, 2006 1:35 AM

Is there any kind of dating scene (in Australia, or out of interest similar cultures such as the UK, US, Canada...) that doesn't revolve around alcohol?

I'm a non-drinker. I also hate cigarette smoke and noisy environments get physically painful after only a short while. Does this leave me with any kind of dating scene, or do I basically have to hang out at the local bookshop cafe whenever I have a spare moment?

posted by krisjohn to society & culture (17 comments total)

You want to meet potential sex partners. The fastest route is dancing, and therefore, for most people, drinking, because drinking calms nerves, loosens tongues, and (when you fail) drowns sorrows.

If you don't want drinking involved, try dance lessons somewhere. Maybe some sort of dance club? Just watch out what sort of person joins -- if you're 20, you don't want to end up dancing with a lot of retired ladies.

Even if you don't hit it off with anyone during lessons, your dancing skills will pay off at parties and clubs when you want to tear people away from their drinks and on to the dance floor, where you can avoid the alcohol and smoke and enjoy the close company of your dance partners.

And, of course, you can join other sorts of clubs to meet people. There likely won't be many people drinking and smoking on hiking outings or at kung fu lessons, and you likely will find people more to your type.

In the end, any dates that come of such meetings will be up to you and the other person -- a cafe? a movie? dinner? a walk? or cut to the chaise?
posted by pracowity at 1:53 AM on October 23, 2006

In the US there are a number of Christian dating groups. Also, in a lot of places you can't smoke inside anyway. You could also try to find hiking groups. There's probably not a whole lot of drinking on the trail and it would be fairly quiet with no smoke.
posted by nadawi at 1:56 AM on October 23, 2006

Take up a Romance language, go to classes, strike up conversation with your predominantly female classmates. Learn to dance.

As I understand it, alcohol-oriented culture is mainly an east-coast and student thing in the US, and swathes of the country would think standard Australian levels of social drinking to be alcoholism. I’m not sure what they do to socialise as an alternative, but they do eat out lots.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 1:59 AM on October 23, 2006

I've never met anyone I've dated in a pub, club, or bar, so I'm sure you are left with lots. Meet people through your friends or through organized activities.
posted by grouse at 2:02 AM on October 23, 2006

Internet dating?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:55 AM on October 23, 2006

Church?
posted by thirteenkiller at 4:09 AM on October 23, 2006

Chill.

Then go join a sporting or activity club or do a TAFE course or something. I agree that the pub scene may not be everyone's caper, but you may want to consider how much you can avoid noisy social environments in the future. Might be a tad impractical.

(am in australia for what that counts)
posted by kaydo at 4:31 AM on October 23, 2006

There is always online dating of course. That way you get to know each other by email, etc before meeting up - and neither alcohol or noisy clubs need ever enter into the equation. Even if you don't end up meeting anybody this way it can be a useful exercise to do alongside some of the options mentioned above (useful, I think, because it forces you to describe yourself as a sellable prospect and to decide what you are looking for in a partner).
posted by rongorongo at 5:24 AM on October 23, 2006

Bars are where you find the low hanging fruit. As a place where you can meet people they (bars) require little work, investment, or preparation.

If you don't like bars or the people you meet there then you'll need to open pipelines into new territories. This could be anything from church, to coffee shops, or wherever people you may be interested in go. Look around town (check the paper) and see what is going on on any given weekend. How about volunteer oppurtunites?

Alternatively the human animal is highly adaptable. Maybe you just haven't found the right bar and drink?
posted by wfrgms at 5:30 AM on October 23, 2006

Art show openings are good. There's often some alcohol involved, but it's not a real drinking "scene", and you're probably not going to feel out of place as a non-drinker. In a lot of the smaller galleries (in Perth and Freo) you just need to sign up to their internet newsletters and you'll get invited to the openings. There are Scrabble clubs (!) around Perth; public speaking organisations like Toastmasters and Rostrum and the like are filled with a surprisingly diverse group of people; subscription tickets to the WASO (WA Symphony Orchestra) means you'll get the chance to hang out with a bunch of music lovers before and after the gigs (and a lot of them are happy just drinking coffee); volunteer at one of the community radio stations around town (RTR FM, Kalamunda Radio, Radio Fremantle, Sonshine FM etc).
A lot of these things depend upon your taste, of course, and none of them are "offcially" dating activities or scenes in the way that a singles bar is, but there are always a lot of people who get involved hoping that "something" might come out of it.
posted by bunglin jones at 6:20 AM on October 23, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Try coffeeshops. I've met a ton of people there.
posted by juliarothbort at 7:04 AM on October 23, 2006

Grocery stores, believe it or not. You won't be finding the low-hanging fruit as you would in a bar scene, but it could work nonetheless. Make sure you can cook if you attempt to pull this off.

The following advice may not work depending on why you don't drink, but you could just start drinking whether you liked it or not. You'd eventually get less uptight, which would help you hook-up in more ways than one. Of course, that route isn't for those who can't handle a little guilt or shame every now and then as you get things sorted out.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:19 AM on October 23, 2006

I have taken a couple of short courses (German and Cognitive Therapy) with the Continuing Education programmes. I went for the educational aspect but there was a fair bit of scoping by other participants happening. Because the courses are typically short-term in duration the lets-go-to-the-pub-after-class culture doesn't have much time to develop. There was a lot of personal interaction (via group exercises) that allowed you to get to know the other people and so gauge whether you would like to make some advances, with a view to some study time together. So enrol in something that interests you, you'll meet like-minded people and even if you don't end up with a date you'll have enjoyed yourself and educated yourself a little bit more.
Importantly, they won't be drinking and smoking in class.
posted by tellurian at 8:52 AM on October 23, 2006

but you could just start drinking whether you liked it or not

This is bad advice. There are plenty of better ways to meet people other than taking up drinking.

Seconding what bunglin jones said. In my area and other parts of the US there is a volunteer organization designed especially for singles - they coordinate a variety of volunteer opportunities, making sure they have an equal number of men and women, and the event is usually one morning or afternoon, so no long term commitment is needed. Perhaps there is something similar where you are?
posted by Nathanial Hörnblowér at 9:07 AM on October 23, 2006

I keep getting postcards (I'm in Chicago, IL US) for this "Adventure Club" that's "not a dating club, but is only open to singles"... They go on all sorts of events ranging from amusement parks to skydiving trips to art gallery openings to museum tours, etc etc, and you don't have to go on all of them, they just charge a fee for arranging big groups of people to go on these things, and you pay for the ones you want to go to.

I think it actually seems like a pretty cool idea. I don't know if similar clubs exist in AU, but I'd guess they do.
posted by twiggy at 1:55 PM on October 23, 2006

Thanks everyone, some good food for thought in these comments.
posted by krisjohn at 3:21 PM on October 23, 2006

To echo Twiggy, I hear of Events and Adventures advertised on the radio in the Seattle area as well. Apparently tons of organized events, trips, good times, etc. for singles. They appear to have clubs in Portland (Oregon), Minneapolis, Dallas and Houston.
posted by lhauser at 9:59 PM on October 24, 2006