Meeting new people for Valentine’s 2022 may be a bit different than we may have anticipated. Whether you’re introverted or extroverted, we hope you find something on this list that inspires you to meet new people while staying safe!

For all the ups and downs of the pandemic, dating was a little wild: Walking dates in the middle of a Northeast winter storm, video calls making dinner, and jumping straight into a situationship with ‘quarantine buddies’ all became a part of the new dating norm. Now that life is going back to “normal”, what are some things we should keep, and what should live in the past along with the dumpster fire that was the pandemic?

In the third and final blog post of our How to Make Dating Serve You Series, we’re going to very scientifically and professionally turn your dating life into a true numbers game (okay, not really, but we’re going to give you a simple tool that can help you better track your dating life).

When dating, we spend so much time focusing on whether other people are the “one” that we do two things: (1) We focus on the needs of the other person; and (2) We put an exorbitant amount of pressure on each new person we meet because we feel like they must be the one. What are the issues with these two mindsets? (1) We discount ourselves and our own needs and wants; (2) When we add the pressure of expecting every person we meet to be the “one,” it makes it much harder when the relationship doesn’t work out as we experience those lows more deeply and personally.

In this series, we’re going to explore tips and tricks for how to have dating serve you. In the first part, we’ll dig into attitudes around dating and how to shift your own. The second part will outline ways to notice and honor your own needs and take time for yourself. The third and final part will showcase how dating is a numbers game that can be optimized, and one you can tilt in your own favor without playing any actual games.