How to Meet Women at Trader Joe's

You can meet women at Trader Joe's, and plenty of men do, but it works best as one stop on a wider daytime loop rather than a place to spend an afternoon. Shop there for real, talk to a woman when one catches your eye and is standing still, and expect one good conversation per visit, not five. Pair the store with a coffee shop and a busy street nearby and you have a full afternoon of chances to meet women in person.

Yes. Trader Joe's is popular with young professionals, students and people who cook for themselves, and the mood inside is relaxed and friendly. The crew chat with customers all day, so a few words between two shoppers does not feel out of place.

A student once asked a dating coach whether he should change where he shops. coach named Whole Foods, Erewhon and Trader Joe's as stores where you are likely to meet more attractive women than at a discount supermarket. He admitted the groceries can cost a little more at stores like these, so it is a trade-off. But you have to buy food somewhere, and you may as well buy it where the women you like are shopping.

The limit is the size of the store. A Trader Joe's is small and busy, and nobody lingers. You get short windows, not long ones.

You will see a mix. Women grabbing dinner on the way home from work, students stocking up, couples doing a weekly shop, and parents with small children.

The best sign is a woman shopping alone with a basket who is browsing rather than racing. She is reading a label, picking a bunch of flowers or deciding between two snacks. A woman with a full cart, a long list and a toddler is on a mission, and today is not the day.

Watch for a partner a few feet away. Couples often split up inside the store and meet again at the register.

You want women with a few spare minutes, so think about pace more than the clock. The after-work rush is crowded, but many people are moving fast to get dinner home. A weekend late morning is busy too, and shoppers tend to wander more slowly.

Try two or three different times over a few weeks and keep a note of which hour gives you women who are browsing. Your store and your neighborhood will have their own rhythm, and your notes will tell you more than any general rule.

A coach in a dating coach's weekly Q&A warned students against spending a whole session inside one store. After an hour in a single shop, people start to notice the man who keeps walking the same aisles and talking to strangers. A mall or a busy street gives you volume without that problem.

So use Trader Joe's the way it is built to be used: a short visit. Do your shopping, take any good chance that comes up, and leave. Then walk to a coffee shop where women sit for a while. coach likes seated women in cafes for this reason: she is not going anywhere, and you can talk at an easy pace. Finish on a busy street before heading home.

Planned this way, the grocery store is one part of a daytime session, not the whole of it.

If Trader Joe's is your actual grocery store, you will see the same crew every week. That is an advantage if you handle it well. Be the customer who chats with everyone: the cashier, the older lady by the flowers, the guy at the sample counter. My view is that a man who is simply social does not look like he is running game. He just looks like a sociable person, so when he talks to a woman he likes, nobody blinks.

Leave the crew members alone while they are working. They are paid to be friendly, they cannot easily walk away, and you will see them again next week.

Expect it to be short. A comment on something in her basket, a laugh, a little back and forth, your name and hers. After a minute or two, say you would like to see her again and get her number, or suggest a coffee next door if she does not seem rushed.

If she is not interested, say "Enjoy your weekend" and get back to your shopping. That clean exit is what lets you keep coming back to the same store.

Knowing where to go is the easy half. Walking over is the hard half. A Cold Approach Bootcamp puts you in the field with a coach. You approach women live during the day on streets and in cafes and at night in bars and lounges. A coach stays with you live through each approach and gives you feedback when each set ends.

You can do it in Miami or New York. Group runs three consecutive days with no more than three students per coach, and Private is fully 1-on-1 for one, two or three days. Every training day is two four-hour blocks in the field, and you leave with a short written practice plan. Beginners are welcome, since there is no skill floor, and the program's specialty is approach anxiety.