Where Is the Best Nightlife in New York for Meeting Women?

For meeting women, the best nightlife in New York is in Lower Manhattan and the nearby parts of Brooklyn. Go to the Lower East Side and the East Village for bars, the Meatpacking District for clubs, and Williamsburg across the river. Where you go matters less than when. An after-work drink, a midweek bar hop, a Saturday at a club, a summer rooftop and the last hour before the bars close each put different women in front of you, in a different mood.

a dating coach's first piece of New York advice has nothing to do with venues. It is about where you sleep. He recommends living, or staying if you are visiting, in Manhattan below about 60th Street, with Williamsburg as the one exception he would consider. When he visits the city, he usually stays on the Lower East Side or in Chelsea.

His reason is simple. It is easy to get a woman to come into Manhattan and hard to get her to leave it. A great night that ends with a long ride to the far side of Queens rarely goes anywhere. A good night that ends three blocks from your door often does.

So if you are asking where the best bars in Manhattan are, start with the ones near where you are staying. A good bar close by beats a great one across town.

On weeknights, the first wave of New York nightlife is the after-work drink. coach points out that many New Yorkers work long hours and go out only now and then, often with colleagues, and they end up wherever their friends take them. That puts attractive, busy women in ordinary bars near offices, early in the evening, with a drink in hand and an hour to spare.

The bars around the big office districts and in neighborhoods such as the West Village and Chelsea fill up between six and eight. The crowd is relaxed, the music is low, and a woman standing at the bar while her friend orders is easy to talk to.

My personal favorite night out in New York surprises most men. Alone, he walks into one bar after another, often small dives, looks around and talks to anyone who catches his eye. If nobody does, he leaves and tries the next one.

The Lower East Side and the East Village suit this best, because the bars sit close together and you can see a dozen rooms in an hour. Try it midweek. A woman who is out on a Tuesday wanted to be out, and she rarely has a plan for the rest of the night that beats talking to you.

Weekends are when the semi-exclusive clubs and the busier bars hit their peak. The Meatpacking District is known for clubs, and the Lower East Side packs its best rooms on a Saturday. Women are dressed up and in a party mood, and there are more of them out than at any other time of the week.

There are also more men. Doors are stricter, rooms are louder, and conversation is harder. Go with a mixed group if you can, expect the door to be choosy, and favor rooms where you can hear each other for at least part of the night.

When the weather is good, coach calls rooftops his favorite kind of venue in the city. Being in the open air puts people in a good mood, and the music is usually lower than in a club, which makes it far easier to talk. Rooftop bars fill early on summer evenings and weekends, so go before dark and stay as the crowd turns over.

New York nightlife runs until four in the morning, and My final tip is to stay out late. As the night goes on, friends get tired and go home, some pair off, and more women are still out without the group they came with. Many of his best stories, and many of his students' best nights, came from the end of the night, at a bar or a late-night diner after closing.

You do not have to stay until four every time. But if you always go home at midnight, you are leaving before the easiest hour of the night.

Knowing where to go is the easy part. Walking up to a woman in a busy room is the part most men skip. Cold Approach runs its Bootcamp in New York and Miami. Each training day is two four-hour blocks in the field, and the mix of nightlife and daytime approaches is set to suit you, with a coach watching every approach and telling you what to change. You leave with a written plan for your next nights out.