Filling the Void With Fiction

I currently have this overwhelming, and masochistic, urge to chain watch romantic movies. You see, my life has been entirely devoid of romance for awhile now. Though I'm mostly okay with this, I am suffering a little from the lack of attention. As shallow as it makes me sound, going unacknowledged is messing with my self esteem a little. Also, I've noticed an increase in my need to fill this void. Often, that means taking myself to see some romantic-comedy where the awkward girl gets the charming guy.

That's not obvious or anything. Thanks Subconscious.

The problem is, I don't really know where to meet new people. I mean, there's the ever cliché "at a bar" answer, but I'm not entirely sure that I want to meet someone at a bar. I know that I don't want to have to go to a bar all the time, especially if it's just to meet people. I also know that the type of people that I'm going to meet in a bar are probably not going to be relationship material. So, where do I meet people?

I understand that I'm pathologically shy around new people, and I often require a transitional friend to try new things. I'm aware that this impedes my success rate in any setting. It pretty much erases the opportunity for a meet-cute at the supermarket. I'm also not likely to approach someone reading my favorite book at a coffee shop, or a guy with a cute dog at the park. However, this doesn't stop me from going to those places in hopes that someone will approach me. This technique is not proving to be very effective.

Thus, I'm stockpiling links to romantic movies, and Hollywood depictions of relationships that defied the odds. Hopefully inundating my brain with fairy tales will trick it into thinking that it's experiencing one of it's own, and I can go on accomplishing the more serious goals in my life (re: grad school & genuine adulthood).