DETERMINED to find love in 2025? Apparently joining a running club is the new vogueish way to meet someone, and if you’ve reached this level of desperation why not try these as well?
Zumba
A ‘dance-based cardio workout’ doesn’t sound terribly romantic, and no one would want to do this embarrassing mix of aerobics and simple dance moves in front of someone they’re trying to pull. It’s not easy being cool at the best of times, and even Lauren Bacall or Steve McQueen would have looked like twats if they’d had to idiotically wave their arms to shit dance remixes of Latino pop.
Joining a running club
Oh this sounds like a bad idea. Unless you’re Florence Joyner you really don’t want people to see you running, especially if you suffer from what doctors call a ‘girly run’. Not only will a running club showcase your lack of fitness, but after the gentlest jog you’ll be demonstrating your remarkable ability to produce sweat and snot. It’s the equivalent of handicapping yourself in front of potential partners by trying to chat them up with a turd in your hands.
Creative writing classes
In your fertile imagination you’re going to meet interesting creative types – arty, sexy, slightly bohemian, Guardian-reading Eng Lit grads stifled by their corporate job. In reality no creative writing class has ever included anyone with a single atom of writing talent, and you’ll only meet weird women with drafts of derivative children’s books imaginatively called Harry the Dog, and male nerds writing unsellable fiction set in the Game of Thrones universe.
Chatting people up at bus stops
Not enormously classy. The fundamental problem is the people who frequent bus stops, ie. riff-raff. So if you’ve got a thing for rough-looking shift workers and 82-year-old pensioners, then hop on the 103 to Loveville. (Actually it goes to Crewe.) Bus stops outside campuses are better, but this is also known as ‘stalking’. Plus there’s a risk that if you do hit it off with a student hottie you might have to humour them that their media studies degree is in some way perceptive.
Any massively gender-imbalanced activity
If you’re female, Camra and Warhammer are the obvious ones. You will have the pick of anyone there. The question is whether you’d want to. Maybe one day they’ll merge into one tragic organisation, whose overwhelming maleness is immediately fatal to anyone without a Y chromosome.
Comics cosplay
The failing of this strategy is that cosplayers not only don’t look like Sue Storm, they don’t even look like someone online cosplaying as Sue Storm. A more attainable fictional likeness would perhaps be Wendolene from Wallace & Gromit. Another problem is that people who are prepared to go out in public dressed as Vision tend to be very into comics. If you can face shagging someone who refers to real life as ‘Earth-1218’, good luck with that.
Ballroom dancing classes
Despite Strictly these are not full of young people, but they are popular with ageing divorcees, so you might find a silver fox or mature MILF, assuming you can stand the old timey music. However the main criterion for a relationship is that you’re fascinated by the lives of random people you’ll never meet, because if you thought your last boyfriend banged on about his ex too much, wait till it’s an ex they were married to for 25 years.
Book groups
Contrary to popular belief, these are for people who hate reading. Forget about finally getting to grips with Midnight’s Children with supportive, stimulating and ideally attractive literature lovers – you’ll be slowly wading through twee shit by Richard Osman. ‘Book groups’ should really be called ‘literally can’t think of anything else to do groups’, so you might well get laid purely because it requires less effort than finishing Gone Girl.
