Singles: Six picks for mixing and mingling

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Yeah ... yada, yada, yada.

The truth is, some people aren't brave enough to put themselves out there and post an Internet ad or talk to a stranger at a nightclub.

The bottom line is you at least have to be willing to start a conversation with a stranger before sparks have a chance to ignite. And while our ideas for where to meet are pretty basic, people tend to forget that the first step is just getting out of the house.

Beside the basics of nightclubs, dating services, churches and the Internet, here are our six picks for singles:

The Bark Park

You have to take the dog out anyway, right?

Few places have a standing invitation to come somewhere that's free and hang out with other like-minded people. Pet owners who frequent the bark park at least have something in common.

Honolulu's main Bark Park, at the corner of Diamond Head Road and 18th Avenue next to Diamond Head Memorial Park, even has parties, like yesterday's Halloween potluck and pet costume parade. (There's another bark park at 2700 Wai'alae Ave. in Kaimuki and a new one at Moanalua Community Park.)

You can even do double duty: Your pet can find a friend. And if you're feeling in the volunteer spirit, you can become a bark park ranger and make sure owners are keeping their minds on their pets and not just mingling.

Join the business class

Andrew Dean Paguyo was working as a bartender at Rumours Nightclub when he heard about an airline-industry private function going on, so he took the night off to check it out. Turns out Heather Uilani Crislip was invited as well, and she caught his eye from across a crowded room.

Though neither of them worked for the airline industry, a business networking soiree led to love.

"It's a fairytale story," said Paguyo, 31, a city bus driver and part-time bartender. "It was coincidence. If I didn't take that night off and she didn't have friends in the airline industry, we never would have met."

His girlfriend became Heather Paguyo when they married in June. She's a 29-year-old elementary school teacher. They live in Mililani.

Go to the potluck

It's OK to invite outsiders to the family party, or even host a dinner party with the intention of getting people together. They just might hit it off.

Minori Makino and Grant Oumi got together that way.

"My friend's friend's friend was married to my husband's friend," she explained. "She said, 'We have the perfect guy for you.'"

The friend invited them to a party.

"I almost didn't go to the Christmas party, because I hardly knew the people who were throwing the party so I felt weird about going," said Minori, a 32-year-old teacher living in Kane'ohe. "But I thought, 'Oh, whatever ... ' and went. Grant almost didn't go either because he was leaving for a trip to Maui the next morning."

But they went, they clicked, and she's now Minori Oumi. They married in June.

That small circle connecting is the story for Janel and Allan Tabion as well.

They met back at Campbell High School, but they didn't start dating until three or four years later.

"My cousin is married to one of his good friends," said Janel, 27, an accounting coordinator at Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club, who got reacquainted with Allan, 26, an air-conditioner maintenance worker, at a family party.

The rest is history. The 'Ewa Beach couple married in August.

Meeting at work

If going to parties isn't your thing and you don't get out much, there's always work.

Jennifer Alvaro has seen other people meet at work and watched relationships fall apart when things went wrong.

She considers herself one of the lucky ones for whom things went right.

Formerly Jennifer Gushikuma, she married 37-year-old Alan Alvaro in August.

"He used to work downstairs," said Jennifer, 30, a photo clerk at Long's in Kaimuki. "I work at Long's and he worked downstairs at Times."

Vincy Inouye also had an upstairs-downstairs working situation with her groom, Mike Inouye. She worked at a bank, and he worked in an office in the same building. He opened an account at the bank, and they became friends. After about eight years of hearing about each other's dates, they saw what was right there all along.

"I think a light went off in both of our heads," said Vincy, 30, of Waikiki. "We decided, 'Hey, why don't we just date?' "

Develop a hobby

When Ken Kawamura joined a volleyball league, he wasn't looking at it as a way to meet women, but that's the way it evolved.

He was playing about three nights a week, and one of those nights, he kept running into Dee Murakami. Soon, they began hanging out outside of volleyball. Team members found common interests in snowboarding and golf.

"We played on the same team about five years before we actually started dating," said Kawamura, 35, of 'Aiea. They became part of a trend in their volleyball league of players pairing up. They got engaged last month.

Venture outdoors

Jennifer Acidera was 27, living on O'ahu, single, and not really looking when she went on the yearly family camping trip to Kanaio, Maui.

Now she's Jennifer Ikehara, a 30-year-old wife and mother planning another camping trip that will mark the third anniversary of meeting Mr. Right.

"I wasn't planning on meeting my future husband at a family camping trip at all," she said.

But her uncle had invited Morris Ikehara on the Thanksgiving weekend trip that year. He asked the uncle for her number, flew from Maui to O'ahu for their first date (at Zippy's), and she ended up moving to be with him.

"I really do believe that you find someone when you least expect it," she said.

Tanya Bricking writes about relationships for The Advertiser. Reach her at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.