Meeting the prospects, cookie style
So you’re sitting alone on a Friday night looking through the pictures of all of your Facebook friends of the opposite sex, wondering who else is at home alone and bored out of their mind. You’ve reached the point where you’re almost desperate enough to put up a personal ad on Craigslist (We’ve all thought about it. It’s OK.). You feel like you’re in a relationship rut. You want to be dating someone, but there really isn’t anyone in your circle of acquaintances that shows any potential. It’s a frustrating feeling to be both alone and lonely.
If you want to break the downward spiral of solitude, it’s time to take action! Here is an adventurous idea to help expand your circle of friends, which also usually increases the number of your romantic prospects: “Hi, I made you cookies.”
Yes, it’s true. Cookies are a miraculous and virtually fail-proof tool to aid in the creation of new friendships. A few months ago, a friend of mine had the amazing idea to utilize the powers of the cookie. Some of you will not agree with the tactics I’m about to reveal, but it worked, and it was fun.
Every Sunday night we made a plate of delicious desserts and went out on patrol. The goal was to give the plate of cookies to an apartment of attractive young ladies that we did not yet know.
We started by crafting a story. A good example of one of our false scenarios is that we had made the cookies for a girl we recently met. Today is her birthday, and we planned to surprise her with the treats. We would pick an obscure name for our fictitious birthday girl so as not to mistakenly call upon the typical Ashley, Lindsey, Rachel or Jamie living in every other Utah Valley college apartment.
Once we had our story straight, we’d venture out to an apartment complex we were not familiar with and find a female residence. When the door was answered, we ask for our invented friend, only to be met with the expected confused looks and apologies. “Sorry, she doesn’t live here.”
“Oh, shoot!” we say. “We must have written down the wrong address. Do you guys have a ward directory handy? Maybe her address is in there.”Without fail, we’d get a directory. As one of us would look through the Mormon dating menu, the other quickly assessed the coolness of the occupants of the current apartment to decide whether we should give up the hunt for our birthday girl and just give the cookies to the ladies there or continue hunting.
If it was mutually decided that the hunt must go on, whoever glanced over the directory now had the names and faces of our next stop. When Ashley of apartment 303 answered the door, we knew exactly who she was. We’d greet her with a smile, and tell her we made her cookies.Suddenly, two once-lonely boys with a plate of cookies were the center of attention in a room full of girls.
The point of this idea is not, as some of you may think, to manipulate. Rather it’s a fun and virtually risk-free way to meet new people. Lots of the apartments we visited never ended in anything more than a date or two. What we really looked forward to was meeting new people and venturing outside our comfort zone.
Be creative! Do something new. Break social barriers, and get outside your comfort zone. There’s no reason to be lonely on a Friday night… especially if you have cookies.
