How to Meet Women on a Friday Night

Start early at an after-work spot, roughly six to nine, then move to a busier bar or lounge once the rooms fill up, and spend the night in one neighborhood with several venues close together. Friday crowds are full of people shaking off the week with coworkers and friends. Many are still deciding where to go next, which makes them easier to join than a Saturday crowd that arrives with a fixed plan. So if you want to know where to meet women on a Friday night, the answer is wherever the after-work crowd turns into the night crowd.

A Friday has a shape, and knowing it tells you where to be at each hour.

Right after work, bars near offices fill with groups in work clothes. Around eight or nine, people peel off to dinner or go home to change. By ten, the neighborhood bars and lounges are busy again with a mix of the after-work survivors and people who just arrived. After midnight, the clubs and late bars take over, and the crowd gets louder and more scattered.

You do not need to work all of it. Pick the part of the night that suits you, and be there when it is at its best.

The first hours of a Friday are underrated. Women who came straight from the office are relaxed, chatty and glad the week is done. They are in groups of coworkers, which are looser than groups of close friends, and nobody has decided yet how the night ends.

Go to bars with a terrace or a long counter in a business district, restaurant bars and beer gardens. Openers about the week write themselves: "You all look like you earned this. Rough week, or good week?" Then ask about plans: "What's the plan after this, or is this the plan?" That one question tells you who is staying out and where they are going.

Once ten o'clock comes, move to a place with energy where you can still hear each other. A busy neighborhood bar, a lounge or a rooftop is usually better than a giant club for meeting people. If you love dancing, go to the club, but know that conversations there will be short, so your job is to start them and then move somewhere quieter.

Stay in one area. If the street has five venues within a few minutes' walk, you can leave a dead room in thirty seconds and you never lose the night to a cab ride.

People on a Friday are tired but relieved. They want to laugh and talk about something other than work. Match that. Be the guy who is clearly enjoying himself and has nowhere he needs to be.

Talk about the weekend instead of the job. "What are you doing tomorrow?" is a better question than "What do you do?" because it leads to stories, plans and sometimes an easy invitation.

A few things go wrong on Fridays more than on other nights:

• Drinking too fast. Cheap after-work drinks on an empty stomach make you sloppy by ten. Eat something and slow down.
• Staying put. The after-work bar empties by nine. If you stay, you end up talking to the bartender while the night happens somewhere else.
• Competition. a dating coach points out that on Friday and Saturday nights, plenty of guys with little skill but a lot of drink have their foot off the brake. You stand out by being the relaxed one, not the loud one.
• Bothering the staff. Bartenders and servers are slammed on Fridays. Save that conversation for a quiet Tuesday.

A Friday has a bonus no weeknight has: the next two days are open. If you meet her and she has to leave with her friends, get her number and suggest something specific for Saturday or Sunday. "I'm getting brunch tomorrow at that place on the corner. Come." A plan for the next day is much easier to say yes to than a vague one for next week.

Text her that night with your name and something from your conversation, so she knows who you are in the morning.

A Friday night is a good place to practice, and a better one with a coach next to you. A Cold Approach Bootcamp is fully in the field in Miami and New York, with night game in bars and lounges mixed with daygame to suit you. Each training day is two four-hour blocks, with live coaching on every approach and feedback after every set.

Group runs three consecutive days at a 3:1 student-to-coach ratio, and its published Miami weekends start on a Friday. Private is 1-on-1 for one, two or three days. No experience is required, and you leave with a written practice plan.