Don't go there: 10 places not to find dates

Volumes have been written on the best places to pick up a member of the opposite gender, but nobody’s written word one on where not to meet a mate. Most regular daters are aware you can comfortably approach somebody at a friend’s party, or your favorite coffee shop, or the local grocery store, but what sort of places should you by no means think about romancing?

Here’re ten of ’em:

A skanky, nasty, gross bar

It’s all fine and good to ask a hottie for their phone number at a watering hole that has a nice jukebox, some top-shelf liquor, and relatively clean floors. But if the tavern looks and smells like a toxic waste dump, or if it has blood on the walls, or if the bartender is covered with festering sores, chances are the person you meet there has issues. Then again, if you’re hanging out there, chances are you have issues.

In the “Military History” section of a bookstore
Do you want to always associate your first meeting with the Crimean War? Not so much.

Anywhere within close proximity of a public restroom
And that means anywhere. Not inside of. Not outside of. Not in front of. Not in back of. This especially holds true if you run into a girl in the boy’s room, or vice versa.

In the waiting room of your shrink’s office
If you ignore this advice, and go out with the goth-looking chick or the eyeshadow-wearing guy who has the timeslot right after yours, and if after two months, it goes south, that means your doctor will be hearing about the failed “relationship” from both sides. Yuck.

Via an online website named something like “I’mGoingToStalkYou.com”
Don’t worry, this site doesn’t exist, but you get the point.

A funeral
Even if she looks amazing in her form-fitting black dress, or even if he is sexy as can be in his double-breasted black suit, don’t do it, if only because the specter of death will always hover over you.

Wrigley Field
The Chicago Cubs haven’t been in a World Series in approximately 3,000 years. A meeting at their venerable ballpark will be fraught with loser-ness.

A police station
Say your cousin got busted for getting into a fight at the aforementioned skanky, nasty, gross bar. Say he calls you to bail him out. Say the girl sharing his holding cell is drop-dead gorgeous, and you want to get her number. Don’t. There’s a high probability that this woman is a criminal, and criminals don’t necessarily make the best girlfriends.

Behind a dumpster in an alley
A dark, dirty, smelly place isn’t the best venue to lay the groundwork for a positive, healthy love affair. Besides, what’re they doing there? What’re you doing there? Wait, don’t answer that…

Work
As the saying goes, “Don’t (you know what) where you (you know what).” Sure, some wonderful relationships have been forged at the office, but the majority of workplace romances fizzle, collapsing under the weight of your co-worker’s gossiping, and too much exposure to one another.