Dating apps and social media have become so synonymous with dating that we have forgotten there was a time when these technological marvels didn’t exist.

Looking for a girlfriend without using dating apps and social media is definitely possible.

How did we find partners when dating apps and social media were absent?

People were meeting each other, dating and getting married, long before dating apps and social media exploded into the dating scene.

Although dating apps and social media have provided a far-reaching avenue for people to meet each other and date, it has fostered a degree of nonchalance in people who use them.

Their heads are stuck on their phones when they are in public.

Too busy swiping and liking.

They are unaware of their environment. An environment that is ripe with dating opportunities.

When was the last time you got your head out of your phone and looked around you?

When you are on the bus, subway, train, elevator, shopping mall, etc.

Every single day, there are opportunities all around you to find a girlfriend that you have probably been ignoring because your head is constantly on your phone doing this or that.

As long as you are around people, there are dating opportunities everywhere.

When last did you open up a conversation with a stranger sitting or standing next to you on the bus or subway, or standing in line with you at a shop?

This is someone who has the potential to be a future girlfriend.

Get into the habit of starting conversations with people you see in your day to day life.

As long as you are respectful, you are bound to talk to a few who are single and interested in taking the conversation beyond the subway to meeting you for coffee or lunch.

Expand your network of friends.

As human beings, we tend to get cliquish in how we form relationships.

We stick with our social group and don’t branch out.

It is time for you to branch out and make friends with new groups of people.

You could do this in several ways.

With people you meet at work, grocery store, church, gym, local park, etc.

Your own neighborhood is ripe with dating opportunities you never take advantage of.

Go beyond saying a rushed hello or waving a hand in greeting whenever you arrive home and come across a neighbor, to instigating proper conversation with said neighbor.

This opens you up to making a new friend who is living right under your nose.

Expanding your social circle in these various ways fosters new friendships and acquaintances.

This type of networking means that you are now someone these people can invite to social functions and introduce you to people they know.

These are social functions where you organically meet new girls that you would have never come across.

Any one of these girls at these social functions has the potential to be a future girlfriend once you open up conversation with them and get to know them.