Raquel Fernandez |
Santiago de Compostela (EFE).- A tavern that promotes an analog “Tinder”, a nightclub that is the birthplace of “senior” romances, a furniture store that has organized a singles dinner and an event promoter that prepares secret dates. There are four curious options to flirt in Galicia.
In the digital age, connecting with others is easier than ever, but many stumble when it comes to establishing interpersonal relationships.
Consequently, loneliness appears, one of the symptoms that some entrepreneurs noticed among their clients and that led them to promote different initiatives with which to recover that flirting as before.
The common idea is to be a kind of “matchmaker” of the 14,501 single people, 2,801 divorced and 2,866 widows that the National Statistics Institute (INE) computed in Spain at the end of 2022. And more, if that number had increased.
Although the proposals are born, all of them, in Galician territory, there are absolutely no borders, neither territorial nor age, to be part of these unique initiatives, as shared by their promoters in the respective conversations held with EFE.
Taberna “A Mina” in Vigo, the “analogue tinder”
If you go into Casco Vello de Vigo, you are not guaranteed to end up in a pair, but there is a good chance of receiving a coaster with messages as daring as “you are cocoa and I am your cake”.
Wednesdays are not just any day at Cristina García and Alejandra Gómez’s premises, because they are, as they boast, “Pinchito Wednesday” in which “not even a pin fits”.
Everything arose from an idea that two lifelong clients, Sara Moreda and Guada Guerra, contributed and that, due to the sanitary restrictions of the pandemic that put the world in check, could not be implemented until a few months ago.
“The key is to lose the modesty to flirt as always,” explains García.
To make it easier, in A Mina you sit down, order your drink, scan carefully and if you see someone you like, you can pass a coaster with the desired level of mystery and anonymity to Gómez. She will be the one who sends it to the cause, or the cause, of those butterflies that flutter in the stomach.
“La luna” nightclub in Pontevedra, cradle of “senior romances”
Since its doors opened in 1989, this nightclub has proclaimed itself as a “meeting point for older people”, according to the manager of the room Jorge Santos. Since those times, friendships, loves and heartbreaks have had a place in this place.
Its most frequent public is the one that arrives well before the midnight post-party, specifically it does so every Sunday at 5:30 p.m. in buses full of retirees that leave from O Porriño, Vigo, Santiago, Ribeira or Moaña. In total, an average of 300 people prepared to dance, but also for “romance and even marriage proposals” to arise, as revealed by Santos.
For this reason, every day at the disco is “an adventure” among the diverse clientele whose age decreases as the night progresses, as the manager details.
Gosende furniture…the singles dinner
A furniture store and a romantic dinner seem not to have much in common, unless its owner is also an event organizer willing to help “find the better half” of his clientele.
That is the case of Julio Gosende, who started the proposal for the singles dinner that will take place on April 1 in Celanova (Ourense) and whose phone does not stop ringing to make reservations.
Guests from Asturias, León and Segovia will also attend what, more than an appointment, will be an experience that offers the possibility of visiting the monastery of San Salvador de Celanova at 7:00 p.m., a tour followed by wine and appetizers, dinner, ‘photocall ‘ and dance.
In total, 212 people, among whom there is a predominantly “fifty-year-old” audience, Gosende qualifies, hoping to “find” love.
If it goes well, the businessman does not rule out repeating the experience at Christmas, since he regrets that this is a festive time in which there are “many people alone.”
ONyVá and the “secret appointments”
The event organizer Graciela Castro perceived the “impetuous need to meet people” that existed and wanted to alleviate it with secret dinners in which “affective responsibility” predominated, she says.
The system, which will resume in 2023 after the stoppage of the coronavirus crisis, consists of announcing them through social networks, revealing only the province in which they will take place.
People can sign up until “the quota runs out” and then “the adventure begins” between tracks to guess where and also what to expect from the meeting, Castro specifies.
Art galleries, beaches or even gyms are possible scenes of falling in love for the groups of 30 people, normally in an age range between 35 and 50, who attend the call.
Presentations and “ice-breaking dynamics”, adds Castro, precede the moment in which, if there is luck and everything flows, sparks begin to fly.
Castro does not know the total number of couples that have been able to come out of these initiatives, but he says that “beautiful things” happen in them, such as the reunion of two people who had lost contact more than twenty years ago.