Meeting 'The One' Without Bar-hopping Around the 'Burg

By Brooke Bates, Rocktown Weekly

Mandy Khochareun didn't go to the gym 13 years ago to find the man of her dreams. He just happened to be there.

Mandy, then a student at JMU, enrolled in a boot camp fitness class at Nautilus Fitness Center (now Gold's Gym). So did Cy Khochareun.

When they met, the couple already knew they had one thing in common: an interest in fitness. That Sunday when Cy showed up at Mandy's church, Valley Church of Christ, they realized they shared the same beliefs, too.

EMU students and engaged couple Jen Edwards of Richmond and Joe Horst of Daltan, Ohio, share a couch at EMU's Common Grounds coffee shop. Photo by Thomas J. Turney

Their dates consisted of mountain biking, hiking and exercising together. Four months later, they were engaged.

But finding the one isn't always that easy, and the process definitely isn't what it was 50 years ago. Although the idea of traditional dating seems to be fading, Harrisonburg singles are still finding places around the city to mingle.

"Obviously if you go to places like the gym or church, you'll meet like-minded people there," said Mandy, 32. "You don't have to meet them at the bar."

Mandy, now the group fitness director at Gold's Gym, and Cy, 39, who now runs Taste of Thai and Oriental Market with his family, were married in 1996. "Neither of us were looking [for someone]," Mandy said. "It was just one of those random Tuesday night things ... I just knew he was it." Mandy and Cy have two children - Jada, 3, and Ty, 4.

A Different Kind of Club

Josh Scandlen worked at a bar while he was a student at George Mason. He met plenty of girls there, but "not one person I look back and say, ‘I wish I had another date with her,' " he said.

Scandlen, 37, doesn't have to worry about the trials of dating in Harrisonburg since he was married when he moved here from Phoenix in 2001. But he can see how it would be tough in a college town. "This is a hard area to meet people if you're not into the bar scene or if you're older than college age," he said.

But there are other options. Scandlen is the marketing director for the Association of Young Professionals, a networking group in Harrisonburg. "I've met good friends through AYP," he said. "I'm networking professionally and socially too."

Mary Caldwell, who moved to Harrisonburg two months ago to be closer to her job at IKON Office Solutions, was eager to meet people in her new city. Caldwell, 22, said she started attending AYP meetings as a way of "networking for my job and for myself."

While AYP introduces her to professional acquaintances in a casual way, she said she also "joined in hopes of meeting a smart business man." The people she meets through AYP "have time to devote to joining an organization. They have a drive about them," she said. "I'm not saying someone at a bar doesn't ... but I want to meet someone on my level. "While many civic clubs such as Rotary and Kiwanis tend to target the older generation, Scandlen suggests AYP and Chamber Business After Hours for young adults. He said both are fantastic opportunities to meet people, whether it's strictly business or a little personal.

Harvey Yoder, a marital and family therapist at the Family Life Resource Center, thinks community organizations like these are much better environments to meet future mates than bars or parties. "There's value in meeting people and partnering with people ... who are a part of the same social networks," Yoder said. That way, you don't just know them through personal interaction, but also through the eyes of mutual friends.

Participating in a club or organization reveals more about your values and interests than drinking in a bar, he said. "I think the more active we are with other people who share our interests and values, the more likely we are to find people who are compatible," he said, like someone who shares your passion for politics instead of your spot at the bar.

College Crushes

Doug Wandersee, assistant director of student programs at EMU, said campus events are designed to help students mingle. Most aren't meant to make them couple up, although some events - like movies and semiformal dances - end up as "traditional dating settings," he said. Other times, certain places are just naturally conducive to socializing.

EMU's University Commons houses Common Grounds coffeehouse, a game room and a fitness center. Wandersee said he often sees couples come in for a game of ping-pong, a workout, a cup of coffee or a concert.

Erika Martin and Andrew Gascho, who have been dating for two months, met off-campus, but frequent the game room for dates with their "ongoing Ping-Pong battle," Gascho said. They also spend time at Common Grounds talking over coffee.

Campus programming also brought Jason and Brenna Hostetter together. They met in a writing class at EMU but "what really solidified things the most," according to 23-year-old Brenna, was the time they spent planning campus activities together.

When they both became Community Advisors on their residence hall floors, they spent a lot of time organizing and attending events, even traveling abroad together through the cross-cultural program. They dated for three years before marrying a month ago.

It's easy for students to "fall into activities happening around you," Brenna said, like games on campus or concerts around town.

But sometimes the best matches are made when you aren't even looking. "You don't necessarily have to go out to meet people," said Jason, 22. "You're just at the same place at the same time with the same friends."

Defining Dating

Maybe meeting people seems hard because dating, in the traditional sense, might be fading away, according to singles and couples alike.

Jess Novak, a 20-year-old junior at JMU, said many of her peers don't take dating seriously. She sees them "go to a party, make out and get phone numbers," sometimes skipping the dating stage altogether. According to Yoder, that's just how this generation does it.

Increasingly, young adults are meeting someone at a party or at the bar and moving straight to physical intimacy. I can't think of a worse way to meet people ... and establish anything like a secure, stable relationship," he said. "But they're seeing that as more casual than asking them to go out to eat."

Formal dating isn't the cool thing to do anymore, Yoder said. It takes more work and commitment than "just [getting] inebriated and ... [going] to bed together."

Gathering phone numbers at a party would be the easy way to meet girls, said Vince Battistone, a 20-year-old JMU sophomore. "But I would never want to meet somebody at a bar," he said, adding that dance clubs and drinking parties aren't for him either. "I'd rather meet them through a connection," he said, like a mutual friend or a similar schedule, even though it'd require some extra work.

One Saturday night earlier this month, Battistone and Rob Gordon were hanging out in Taylor Down Under when Blame it on the Train - a concert production and promotion class and company at JMU - began setting up for speed dating. The guys, both single, decided to check it out.

The students packed icebreakers and get-to-know-you questions into each seven-minute date. And though nobody left hand-in-hand with a new heartthrob, they met people they otherwise wouldn't have.

Gordon, 20, said he liked the opportunity to meet new people, but the setup wasn't quite his style. "It's too long for a punch line but not long enough for an actual conversation," he said. The JMU junior said he'd rather know a girl "in a casual context" as friends before sitting down on a date.

Erika Martin, a sophomore at EMU, said "friends first" is a generational construction. "Before, you didn't play games before dating," she said after a conversation with her father about the changing face of dating. In her parents' generation, "you'd just ask someone out and start dating."

Now, relationships go through the friend stage first, the time of "hanging out like you're dating," without defining it as dating, she said. She met Andrew Gascho, a 21-year-old junior at EMU, last March after his band played in Lancaster, Pa. They kept in touch during the summer and were "basically dating" when school started this fall, but they didn't slap on the label right away.

Jason Hostetter, 22, remembers when he started dating Brenna three years ago. "There's always that span of time when people ask if you're dating and you answer, 'I don't know,' " he said. "There are different labels for different relationships. What one person calls dating may not be the same for someone else."

Brenna, 23, said that's how dating has changed since her parents' generation. "Now dating has more to do with the title," Brenna said. "It's a way to identify yourself in a relationship."

After just a few dates, Battistone agreed, people expect couples to define the relationship.

"There's too much pressure," Battistone agreed. "[If] a person is fun to be around, why ask if it has to be something? Why can't you continue to just go on dates?"

Because, according to Yoder, this generation's idea of dating is abbreviated. "Rather than dating, steady dating, engagement, marriage; there's a lot of one night stands, then cohabiting, then marriage," he said.

Yoder said he's concerned about the change. "You wouldn't buy a house or choose a new career without doing careful research," he said. "You'd be concerned about getting references ... rather than going by impulse." Committing to a partner is a serious step, he said, and shouldn't be confused with instant satisfaction.

Once they've found the one, couples are glad to put that step behind them. "I'm blessed by God. I'm so grateful [for my wife,]" said Scandlen, who met his wife at college. "But if you're not going to college it's real tough, and if you're not from here I think it'd be tough. I don't envy people in that way at all."

— article by: By Brooke Bates, Rocktown Weekly; posted November 27, 2007