How Do People Find Dates in New York City?

People in New York find dates four ways: dating apps, meeting someone in person during the day, meeting someone at a bar or lounge at night, and meeting through friends and the things they do each week. Most men lean on the apps and hope. The men who date well use two or three routes at once, and the one they rely on is the one they control: walking up to a woman they notice and saying hello.

Here is how each route works in the city, what it costs you, and how to turn a first conversation into a date she actually shows up for.

New York is a strong city for apps. a dating coach calls it the best city for online dating he knows of, because so many single women live there and many of them are busy, career-focused and short on time to go out. An app lets them meet someone on their own schedule.

The costs are time and accuracy. Swiping can eat hours if you let it, and coach warns that women often look different from their photos. His advice is to use the apps and to treat them as "a bonus round," not as your whole plan. A man who only uses apps is competing with every other man in the city on a screen.

By day, the best places are the ones where women have stopped moving. Parks come first. My favorites in Manhattan are Washington Square Park, Bryant Park, Madison Square Park and Union Square Park, and he notes that "if someone's out in a park they've come out to be among people."

Coffee shops and bookstores work for the same reason. A woman reading at a cafe table has time. A woman marching up Sixth Avenue with headphones in does not, and you let her go.

People in New York are more open to a hello than the city's reputation suggests. Many moved there recently and are still building a life, so they are looking to meet people. And if an approach goes badly, you will almost certainly never see her again.

At night, ordinary bars are the easiest way in. You can walk in without a list or a promoter, and they are full of people who came out with coworkers or friends. coach likes them midweek, because a woman who is out on a Tuesday wanted to go out and has no plan for later.

In warm months, rooftop bars are the best night setting in the city. The open air keeps the music down, so you can actually hear her. Much of the city's nightlife also runs until four in the morning, and because most people take the subway or a car, they rarely arrive and leave as a fixed group.

The oldest route still works. coach suggests a yoga or pilates class, or better, a social dance class like salsa, where you meet women as part of the evening. Friends of friends are another source, and in a city this size there is a club or group for almost any interest you have.

This route is slower and gives you less choice over who you meet. It does give you something in common from the start, and it fills your week with places to be, which makes the other routes easier.

Meeting women is only half of it. The other half is getting a date on the calendar.

If a conversation is going well, ask for her number or her Instagram before it fades. Then suggest a specific day, time and place within a day or two. A plan near her office or apartment gets a yes far more often than one that asks her to cross two boroughs.

You can also skip the gap. Manhattan has a coffee shop or a bar within a block or two of almost anywhere, so if she has time, you can take her for a coffee right then. That is the fastest date in the city.

Most first dates in New York are a drink, a coffee or a walk, not a dinner. Keep the first stop near one of you and know a second stop a few blocks away. Schedules are full, so offer two possible evenings instead of asking when she is free. And plan around the map: My experience is that it is much easier to get a woman to come into Manhattan than out of it to the outer boroughs.

For many men the in-person routes are the hard part, because knowing where to go and actually walking over are different skills. Cold Approach runs its Bootcamp in person in Miami and New York only. In New York it is arranged with you after you book: Private runs one, two or three days with your coach alone, and Group, with no more than three students per coach, is available on request.

Each training day is two four-hour blocks in the field, with daygame and night game mixed to suit you. Your coach works with you on every approach, from the first hello to exchanging numbers and recognizing when an immediate date makes sense. There is no skill floor, and you leave with a written practice plan for the weeks after.