Shanghai’s Lonely Hearts Club
All the single ladies! And all you single gents out there too, listen up! We feel your pain; finding a date in Shanghai is no easy task, and in the fast paced come-and-go of this cosmopolitan city, it’s even more difficult if you’re looking to land a laowai.
But whatever your preferences, Talk Magazine aims to add that little bit of a spark to your life, with our fail-proof guide to getting out and finding your baima wangzi, your Prince Charming, in time for Qixi Jie (Chinese Valentine’s Day) next month.
Step 1 How to find a date
Websites
The sorry state of affairs is that it’s actually quite difficult to find a reputable internet dating website; the majority of them out there tend to be interface-unfriendly replicas of one other, with minimum levels of privacy (meaning that every Joe Bloggs under the sun can see your ugly mug and read your desperate words of narcissism – take note DateInAsia.com, ChineseKisses.com and ChinaLoveMatch.net users) not to mention a limited amount of profile selection. I’m perhaps biased though – after all, if you’re looking for a girl, not a guy, there’s no end of websites promising young, hot, Chinese ladies looking for fun. A simple Google search of “China dating” brings up five in the first ten.
Of course the question then begs of what you see, being really what you get. If you’re a girl, you might be inclined to give up before you’ve even begun. If you’re a guy, you might wonder whether you’re not about to meet up with a woman who’s not only twice the size of the photograph she posted, but twice the age. Oh and the photograph’s actually her daughter.
But don’t despair, there are a few choices out there, with SmartShanghai’s (www.smartshanghai.com/dating) dating section of their website being the most popular English language site to date, not to mention the most reputable (being regulated at the sign-up stage not only for spam, but for unclear or “inappropriate” photos). At the time of writing, there were 13,098 profiles on there, of which 7,316 were girls, and 5,782 were guys. How do you fancy the odds now, ladies?
If you’re able to speak Chinese, the net sweeps much wider, to include yuehui.163.com (with over 8 million registered users), HongNiang.com (literally, red [hot] women – but you can also search for men), and jiayuan.com, all of which are widely used, and make it easy to find someone in China whether you’re straight, gay, or other.
And if you are looking for something just a little different, there’s always SeaCaptainDate.com, a website specifically geared towards pairing you up with lonely sea captains. SeaCaptainDate’s been all the buzz this last few months, with Time Magazine and Huffington Post among many questioning whether it’s all a hoax, when the reality is that it’s quite simply, and shockingly, legit. Failing that, you can always wait until the rather self explanatory UK sensation UniformDating.com, expands to the Mainland.
Apps
For those who even think the pace of internet dating is too slow, there are a handful of apps out there to connect with singles instantly, make friends, or even take things to that next level. Of them all, the leading is iJOYou (http://app.net/ijoyou) which in Chinese, means ‘Love to make friends’. Available for free in both English and Chinese, iJOYou is basically an interactive chatroom which allows you to search for users, and then send them texts, audio messages, or photos.
MoMo (http://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/mo-mo/id448165862?l=en&mt=8) goes that little bit further, and also allows you to see whether other users are within close proximity of you, and indeed how close they are, with its GPS activated software. Founded in December 2011, this super stalker app has already managed to surpass a startling two million users and is great if you want to meet other, open-minded people on the fly. Or you simply like stalking.
Of course your safest bet is probably going with eHarmony (http://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/eharmony-1-trusted-dating/id458272450?l=en&mt=8), one of the leading established international dating websites for over ten years that’s finally got itself an app, and claims to be “responsible for 5% of marriages in the US.” Curious? We know you are.
Social Events
If you find all this modern technology far too complicated, feel there’s no better compensation for breaking the ice with your future soulmate than by doing so face to face, there are plenty of ways to do so. The Shanghai Match Trading Association have set the standard by establishing the city’s go-to event for singles and their suffering parents, after hosting their second matchmaking party event last month at the Saudi Arabian pavilion on the World Expo site. This event saw attendance of a staggering 30,000+ young hopefuls, and is said to address the issue of increasingly rich and ambitious young people finding it difficult to meet life-partners. Watch out for the next one Shanghai, that is, if a venue can be found to hold the increasing capacity.
Unfortunately however, the event isn’t open to laowai, and so as an alternative to loitering on the sidelines, there’s always OkDeal’s speed dating sessions (www.okdealclub.com), our favourite of which this month is on 16 June from 7.30pm, when they’re hosting a Lock and Key party at glo London (1 Wulumuqi Lu, near Dongping Lu). Every woman is given a lock, and every guy a key. You figure out the rest.
And maybe you’re shy, or just looking for something a little bit more subtle, whatever. Keep an eye on the city’s most loved magazine, Talk Magazine (http://shanghai.talkmagazines.cn/whats-on) for the next business social event in the city, and be sure to bring a stack of business cards! The clever and sneaky way to obtain that hottie’s number.
