1. Volunteer for a charity. You will be amazed at the number of great people who volunteer their time to charity. Here you will be able to mingle, and get involved with people without the stress of canvassing them cold turkey. It will be quite easy to strike up a conversation with someone that you fancy in the group. You will also be able to quite easily exchange contact details and even suggest a coffee or tea meet-up. While volunteering you will be amazed at the type of information you can amass about a person by simply working along side them and having casual conversation. Far more than you would in an expensive dinner date.
2. Join social networking sites. I am quite amazed at the raft of information people put up about themselves, along with tons of pictures of them. You can quite easily “friend” someone and strike up a conversation with them about the interest they mention on their profile. There are tons by facebook, myspace, Hi5 seems to be most popular
3. Join or create a class about your interest and hobbies. Or even join a male/female dominated class. One lady I read about decided to advertise a class to teach men how to cook. She not only got paid for it but many of the men wanted to take her out — what a fantastic idea.
4. While there are many commercial dating sites there are also some good free ones also. One that comes to mind is plentyoffish.com The site get millions of visit per month and boast hundreds of thousands pairing up.
5. One great site that I have come across is meetup.com This is a unique site as it puts in touch with people who will like to meet-up based on a particular interest. You can meet-up with people internationally or people in your geographical area
6. Host, create and attend get-togethers that can range from bbq, parties, book clubs, movie reviews or anything that is of interest to you but will also bring other people together.

While most of the activities above are not strictly dates, they will bring you intouch with many people in a way that will make it much easier for you to know them, exchange details and communicate via emails, telephone and later meetups or dates. Trying to get a person to go out with you through cold calls or “cold contact” can be not only very difficult but also emotionally draining.

1. Dating sites are expensive, some could even rival your utility or phone bill when all the hidden charges are added. Although they do not charge to register, you need to pay a recurring charge to contact someone you fancy or respond to someone who wants to contact you.
2. In addition to all the money you spend to just electronically contact someone, you still need to shell out for the actually date.
3. Internet dating site success rates are not as impressive as they make it out to be.
4. Even after using some of the matching programs on these many people complain that the person they meet do not match the projection they post online – disappointment.
5. Many of the people on dating sites may be inactive, got married or found a partner, but none of these have deleted their profiles. In some instances there is not facility to delete your profile.
6. The primary object of most dating sites is to make money not necessarily your interest. The longer they can keep you subscribed to their service the more money they will make from you.
7. There are ton of alternative and free ways of getting the desire of your heart. E.g Social networking sites are free and offer a much more varied and rounded way of connecting and interacting with people that dating sites