How to date without tinder

[lisa13 12,245]

you guys are even more degenerate than I'd imagined 

 

but seriously - like I said during UNI years/in UNI bars this is pretty normal.  but OP is not a uni kid, and while he may or may not be interested in a hookup if it presents itself, it does not seem to be his focus (hehe, I first typed that as "fuckus" - wow.  time to step away from TT)

 

[dstanners 1,487]

Thanks @dj_jay_smith, it sounded so seedy the way @lisa13 described it, which wasn''t my aim at all!

Perhaps it is a UK thing but it is also my experience here in Germany too - I'm pretty sure that Germans have also been known to enjoy a beer or two. 

The places I go out are not "hookup joints" (I've been married for years, and have more than enough difficulty with the one poor woman who married me, to get involved with anything like that), but the idea made me laugh.

That said, I do tend to go out for a drink in informal, "pub-like" places, where people aren't necessarily sat in fixed groups.

My experience is that whenever I go out, I usually end up speaking to a variety of people in addition to the folk I go out with. It's not a conscious effort to leave one group and go and "hit on" someone from another group. It's just chatting to people. Is that so bad?...now I'll just wait until @lisa13 makes me paranoid that I'm the pub drunk always shouting nonsense and dribbling conversation at any passing stranger. 

[lisa13 12,245]

2 minutes ago, dstanners said:

It's not a conscious effort to leave one group and go and "hit on" someone from another group. It's just chatting to people. Is that so bad?...now I'll just wait until @lisa13 makes me paranoid that I'm the pub drunk always shouting nonsense and dribbling conversation at any passing stranger. 

 

noooooooooo there is nothing wrong with any of it.  I just don't see it happen THAT often.  But this could be a function of the kinds of bars I go to, and I also think it's partly a Munich thing - people tend to go out with their friends and stick with them.  It's notoriously hard to meet new people here past uni age.  I personally have had most random conversations in this city when I'm alone (under a variety of scenarios), normally with other people who are alone.

 

but remind me to tell you about the time I accidentally (honest) groped a guy on my way to the ladies room...we did have a random and unexpected conversation around that   but funny enough this happened in exactly the kind of bar I don't usually visit.  the next time I went to that bar there was a young lady following me around and kinda...yeah I'll say it: she kept finding excuses to rub up against me, all the while giving me googly eyes.

 

I am always amused to land in a bar like that - I don't judge, and I'm all for having fun, it's just not my MO 

 

[LukeSkywalker 7,543]

If you're a lousy Latin dancer and if women only go to museums in winter, then try yoga classes or join a book club or participate in a wine tasting. Plenty of women around. 

[black1 1,696]

I met my wife at breakfast in a hostel years and years ago.

 

Wasn't the first online big dating thing aimed at Jewish people finding a partner? Try a muslim dating site as well as installing tinder on a NEW phone that is not rooted. Also what hobbies do you have or like or would like to do and join a group like the others said, don't fake it.

[BayrischDude 2,061]

Lisa, as you live in Munich, the opportunities to meet people are most like endless.  When one lives in a smaller town or village, the local pub is about the only nightly place to meet people.  That and the VHS...

I live in Immenstadt (south of Kempten).  It has about 12K people.  Nights here are dullish and we have three pubs.  Weekends these are packed.

[lisa13 12,245]

1 hour ago, BayrischDude said:

Lisa, as you live in Munich, the opportunities to meet people are most like endless.  When one lives in a smaller town or village, the local pub is about the only nightly place to meet people.  That and the VHS...

I live in Immenstadt (south of Kempten).  It has about 12K people.  Nights here are dullish and we have three pubs.  Weekends these are packed.

 

yes I suppose if I wanted to meet people 20 years younger than I the sky's the limit

 

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining as I'm not.  Most things I enjoy doing are perfectly suited to solo effort and quite honestly I don't have interest in meeting people just for the sake of it, or to avoid being/doing things on my own. Maybe I am not desperate enough   I "meet" plenty of people but it's just in passing, and that's totally fine with me.  Such is city life (every city I've ever lived in at least) - yes you encounter a lot more people, but it rarely leads to getting to know them.

 

my issue with small towns isn't that there aren't enough people to meet or things to do, but that it's way more common for people to be all up in your business.  hate that.

 

[john g. 37,440]

Yep, lisa! And village life!! All noses sniffing! I go out with three dogs on a leash several times a day and I keep hearing: " where are you going? ".

Where do they think I´m going? To the brothel?

 Really, jeez!!

[catjones 1,650]

5 hours ago, LukeSkywalker said:

If you're a lousy Latin dancer and if women only go to museums in winter, then try yoga classes or join a book club or participate in a wine tasting. Plenty of women around. 

 

Or, you could put a salt lick in an open field....and wait.

[LukeSkywalker 7,543]

Na, I tried that and didn't work.

[optimista 5,783]

One of these can change your life radically. There is a smallish community of people who regularly meet at alphorn festivals all over Germany and beyond. If you have a shred of music in you, you can do it. Google Alphornkurs to get started. There is not that much to learn, you just have to develop the lip muscles and acquire the right breathing technique. The rest is practice. If nothing else it will get you out into the forest and fresh air. No good playing this thing in your bathroom where there is no echo. Contrary to expectations perhaps, there are plenty of ladies doing this.

 

If this seems too daunting and you are not tone deaf, why not join a choir? There are lots in Germany. Good for the soul and always more ladies than men (unless you choose male voice!)

[alderhill 1,089]

8 minutes ago, optimista said:

One of these can change your life radically. There is a smallish community of people who regularly meet at alphorn festivals all over Germany and beyond. If you have a shred of music in you, you can do it. Google Alphornkurs to get started. There is not that much to learn, you just have to develop the lip muscles and acquire the right breathing technique. The rest is practice. If nothing else it will get you out into the forest and fresh air. No good playing this thing in your bathroom where there is no echo. Contrary to expectations perhaps, there are plenty of ladies doing this.

 

I've heard there are a lot of women here who love to blow the horn? With good lip muscles and breathing techniques? Am I in the right club?

[dj_jay_smith 3,446]

8 minutes ago, alderhill said:

 

I've heard there are a lot of women here who love to blow the horn? With good lip muscles and breathing techniques? Am I in the right club?

 

That's rather sexist you know!  It is an activity which is open to all genders.

 

[alderhill 1,089]

On 8/14/2019, 12:19:23, Pesar said:

Thanks for the reply. There's a problem with this approach. Everytime I approached a girl from my own country I heard the same reply in various forms: That she prefers a local man. Be it because it helps them get German citizenship over three years or just Schoen ist anders! They prefer not to be with a man from their home country. Yes these people are so nice and better educated. But for people from other countries. The best example is when I approached one and she said she is looking for someone from a "Different culture". And when I said the reason I left my home country forever was that I had a "Different Culture" she insisted and said she finds it boring to talk to someone with the same background. The worst example is another girl whom in an event was approached by my friend and quickly rejected him by a very short reply. Later that night she went out with two brothers from Germany one around 60 years old and the other around 50 both with hands around her waist... . I'm sure the later case is so rare and we can't judge people based on it. Anyways I don't have much chance with girls of my own country. There are other problems, including that government in my country always excused its brutal behavior against women by claiming that they are protecting Faith of men! I cannot change result of 4 decades of a very sophisticated propaganda machine just in a small talk in a party! Been there. Tried that.

 

I see that you're Iranian. Maybe Persian, maybe not. In my hometown, there are a lot of Iranian/Persian (I know some Azeris and a few Yazidis, too), though mostly the richer upper-class or middle-classes who managed to get out in the 90's. I don't want to generalize too much, but from my limited experience I always found Persian girls fairly secular, friendly, and yes pretty, but also what we'd call 'high-maintenance'! One of my best friend's dated a Persian girl for years, as have other friends, and I also saw Persian classmates' and their partners... Just my impressions. So here you are in Berlin! 

 

You may want to look up the definition of 'cultural cringe'. A lot of immigrants/expats feel this when in another culture. It's a pretty common phenomenon, so some of your compatriots might be feeling it too. Can be in one's own culture at home, but often more when moving into a new culture, especially in the early years after moving. I certainly feel it in some ways, and I can remember a phase of being totally embarrassed by North American tourists I'd see or hear here in Germany. I care much less nowadays either way.

 

From my own experiences in Berlin, and that of friends who live(d) there: I see it as a big never-ending conga line of people jumping in and out all the time, chasing their dreams (realistic or not!), never quite 'needing' to settle down or even consider it, because there's something new around the corner all the time. (TBH, I think a lot of big cities are like this.) People date and obviously form relationships, some which can go on quite a long time! But I think there is definitely an attitude of "temporariness" in a lot of people. Or, they've moved to Berlin with a very particular idea of just how it's all going to be (bohemian rockstar hipster, whatever), and if you don't meet those casting call guidelines, you don't have a place in the film that is their life, and so you're simply out. Of course, you can try to mould yourself to these casting call guidelines, it will work to an extent. But I think playing a role just to date others also playing a role is a recipe for disaster in the end. It isn't really like this in, say, mid-size towns, nor even (I guess?) Cologne or Hamburg or Stuttgart? Or Munich? I dunno. Haven't visited enough to say.

 

As has also been mentioned, Germany doesn't really have a formalized dating culture like you might know from American films. I'm married to a lovely German woman, but overall I have to say I do find many German women sort of closed off, the "chemistry" more of an inert gas. In fact, it's probably more that Germany itself isn't really a small-talk friendly mingling idle chit-chat sort of culture. Well, most people are open in the right context, just not with strangers. In mid-size towns I've lived in, it's not so bad. Berlin is definitely different! I remember going to bars in the student city I lived in (Münster) for a few years. We'd go as a group of friends (always mixed male and female, though usually more female than male -- and mostly foreigners, though some Germans too), and not even trying to hook-up per se, just to go out, have a few drinks, dance, smoke (back in the day...), and chat and wrap it all up with a döner at 3 am. As I recall, many groups of girls would form what we would eventually call "buffalo circles", these impenetrable rings of angry silence, where if you dared accidentally brush shoulders from behind, an evil stare or a shove would be waiting. Forget trying to talk to anyone! I was even once told "vee don't vant to talk wiz foreigners!". For a group of us from different countries, including other European countries, it was sort of perplexing.

 

As for dating tips, I think others have already said what I would've... Try joining clubs and activities, work on expanding your social circle in general. From that, opportunities will arise. As you work from home and spend a lot of time online for job/socially, you need a 'real world' outlet. Tindr came just after my time, but I recall OKC and other websites and lots of the frustration, too. I had dates, some short-term relationships as well, but lots and lots of dead-ends as you describe (I later met my wife in 'real life'). You just have to remember that on average, women are inundated with literally hundreds of messages, not to mention vey brash sexual one-liners, dick pics, 'negging' and so on. If men are the buyers and women are the sellers, than almost all online dating is a sellers market. Just how it is.

[AnswerToLife42 2,491]

Maybe they are afraid that they would end up wearing a burka?

[pmd 685]

A few people suggesting 'become a teacher'. Not sure I would really recommend this as your motivation should be to teach, not to pick up dates.

 

So, if not teaching, why not learning? OP, your English is very good, why don't you enroll for advanced English lessons? You could also advertise for tandem conversation sessions were you speak your native language and your partner would speak in hers..and then see how it goes!

Good luck!