Geo Targeting Your Sex Life.

Wha?  Come again?  Geo targeting what???  That's right, that's the name of this post, “Geo Targeting Your Sex Life.”  Wikipedia says that

“Geo targeting in geomarketing and internet marketing is the method of determining the geolocation (the physical location) of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, Internet Protocol (IP) address, ISP or other criteria.”

WTF???  How in the hell does that apply to  your sex life?  Allow me to ‘splain it, Lucy.First off, I think if you want to be successful at dating you need to know your environment.  Not only that but you need to know the outer reaches of your environment, too.  Inevitably a person becomes complacent doing the same things over and over again.  That's when skill sets begin to deteriorate.  At that point the person needs a shock, a change of scenery.  That's why people change jobs… Thus, people should change how and where they date.  I'm not necessarily going to talk about the how too much so much as I'll discuss the where.

I'll begin with my own personal example.  I have lived in Southern California for a number of years bouncing around through Orange County and the dreaded Inland Empire.  Not so much LA and that is where you want to go to do anything cultural or fun.  I mean, that's not entirely true.  There's plenty of nuggets to be found elsewhere.  I've found most of them, I feel, in my dating misadventures.  But not so much LA.  I'd had it.  I decided not knowing LA all that well just wasn't going to cut it.  So I made a decision.  I told myself that I wasn't going to date local women anymore.  Nope!  I was going to spread my wings and date women out in he LA/Valley areas.

Now, this undertaking was a bit bigger than I thought.  I didn't get the gas expenses that would pile up as a result… I made peace with that, however.  My first date, we arranged to meet at a coffee joint in Culver City, it was a Sunday and the place was closed.  Not to worry, the agile dater always has a backup plan, or quick access to an alternate place.  I had both.  We ended up at a place called Royal Tea, just a couple miles away.  Let me tell you, awesome!  Things could not have worked out as well as they did.  My date and I marveled at the art selections and slumped in our plush squashy chairs as we sipped down our Royal Honey Milk Tea.  While we dated she introduced me to a great sushi place in Downtown LA and then to a nice winery tucked away in the Malibu hills.

Another woman I dated and am still friends with has a deep rooted love/hate affair with LA.  This woman took me to so many places! We partied and drank and ate our way through Hollywood, Los Feliz and Silver Lake and some of the surrounding areas.  With her I had some great “LA nights.” I mean, really fun times.

So I had amassed a small arsenal of places  to not only take my friends but also future dates, potentially.  Why is that important though?  Personally, I think it's important to become a student of the city in which you live.  When you've studied up, venture out and see what else there is.  It is a chance to immerse oneself into an area's culture and lifestyle.  Sure, it's inconvenient and costlier, but I'd gladly continue to pay what I've paid to learn more about a city's culture and people.

Tools of the trade:

• Foursquare – A great site to help you discover what's going on in your city.
• Yelp – User contributed reviews of businesses within your city/town/metro area.
• Smart Phones with mobile apps.  Read: Iphone, Droid or similar.  If you're in a pinch and need some suggestions and want to be a hero, these devices won't fail you… Unless you fall out of an area of coverage. But Luke Wilson can help you out with that, since that douche bag is always carrying a map of 3g coverage with him.

Get out there and find some place to geo target.  Notice I said “some place” and not “someone?” I mean, yes, target someone, but just do it in a different city. You'll be glad you did.

Until next time, go nail someone in a different zip and area code.