Jan is a single woman living in Huntington Beach, California. She loves walking along the water’s edge while enjoying the setting sun. She also likes reading a good mystery, cooking Italian food, her job as a corporate attorney and spending time cradling a glass of wine while lying by her fireplace listening to jazz with her cat stretched out nearby. Life has been good…but not great because she’s alone.

She is quite busy with her career and it isn’t wise to get linked up with a fellow attorney, most of whom may be willing but are also married. Jan also is a firm believer that you “don’t dip your pen in the company inkwell.” She also doesn’t like the bar scene and considers herself “above that.” An online dating service is preferable but a little too impersonal for her. Now in her late 20’s she is more seriously weighing her dating options. The key, it turns out is her cat.

It turns out that “volunteering” is a great way to meet people and because Jan has life-long love of animals, she decides that she’d also like to associate with fellow animal-lovers. And a man who loves his dog…well that is a big plus with her. But first, let’s review the other options and why they aren’t as realistic.

The Bar Scene

There probably isn’t a better place to meet someone without wasting a lot of time. When a man or a woman is sitting at a bar alone, or even with a friend, it is quite obvious that they’re available. And with some free-flowing liquor to erase inhibitions it is easy to strike up a conversation. The trouble is that most people are not only trying to “put their best foot forward,” they’re usually wearing the wrong shoe size altogether, meaning that they tend to oversell or exaggerate – a lot. It seems no one at a bar is “average.” It may very well turn out that you really have very little in common, except sex. If that’s the game for an evening of fun and frolic then the bar scene is probably a good bet. Men love it because it doesn’t mean “commitment” but most women afterwards, say it makes them feel somewhat cheap.