Central Park is one of the best places to meet women in New York City. That’s because it has all the usual daytime advantages while being large, central (as its name suggests), attractive to a lot of people (which means it’ll be easier for you to do multiple approaches and stack options), and most of the women you see won’t be in a rush (they go there to relax, after all).
That said, I wouldn’t say that Central Park is necessarily the best case to apply serious, Good Looking Loser-style hardcore screening routines or finding obvious DTF girls. If you’re looking to get laid fast, it probably won’t be the venue that delivers on that. What approaching in Central Park will do for you, especially when starting out, is the following:
- Allow you to gain rapid experience by the sheer volume of approaches you’ll be able to make. Thus, you’ll be more confident and overcome your approach anxiety, as well as keep your general skills sharp.
- Allow you to play the numbers game consistently and very easily.
- Gives you a consistently high-yielding mine of women to approach.
So that said, what would be the best way to go about meeting women in Central Park?
The Basics
The first basic is that you’ll have a lot of time to do a lot of approaches. You can do a lot, all year round, though the peak season is from May to October. Though I recommend that you use your winter to get the bulk of your big project for the year done, you can definitely meet women in Central Park even in the coldest days of January. Oddly enough, my success rate was slightly higher in those dreaded winter months than during the warmer months.
I think the reason for this seemingly mysterious phenomenon has been stated before – women that go out in bad weather, at odd hours (to any venue), etc. means that they’re in some way more motivated to meet men (even if unconsciously). And although a daytime venue is not a place where a woman is in a specific mood to meet a man, she will be open to it, possibly even more so in the bad weather because it’s more of a novelty.
The second basic is that the park is very big (duh). You don’t want to move around too much. Instead, it’s better to have a select few areas in the park that you go to in order to maximize your return on investment. Roaming around will deliver a lot of women to your line of travel, but you’ll get a lot more by visiting high-traffic areas and staying in them. There, you’ll sit down at a crossroads, wait to find a girl you like, and then swoop in.
Though you may be sitting in a certain spot for a while this way, that doesn’t mean you need to be idling. These spots are the genesis of where I’ve written many of my posts. I’ve also read many great books to both increase my skills and improve my knowledge in general. This is actually where I get the bulk of my reading done, since when I’m at home I generally tend to do other things (mostly business-related things).
So you may be sitting idle, but you need never be idling by taking this approach and waiting for a woman to cross your path. One thing I will warn against is that if you see a woman you want to approach, you need to commit to doing that immediately and not finishing the task you were doing before while sitting, otherwise you’re just going to not approach, as you’re too distracted (a phenomenon called the Zeigarnik effect).
Where You Should Go
You’re going to want to focus your attention on high-traffic areas, but also areas that offer a lot of space so that you’ll feel more comfortable and not doubt yourself. For instance, a lot of guys think that “things can get awkward” if too many people overhear your approach. This is mostly an illusion, but that doesn’t stop the emotion from giving you doubts anyway. This way, you eliminate those doubts.
There are a lot of places in Central Park that you can meet women, but I’ve found that straying toward the southern half of the park will get you the most results. That’s because it’s more highly trafficked. Then again however, where you ultimately want to go could also depend on your logistics if you find yourself living near Central Park (within a 15 minute distance or so). If you live nearer toward the northern half of the park, you may want to visit those locations to run some more serious screening routines.
Since I live toward the southern half of the park, that’s where I go.
Bethesda Terrace/Fountain/TheMall
This part of Central Park, in and around the 72nd Street Traverse, is a well from which you can draw water anytime. Even in the bleakest months of January and February, you will find women here.
The boathouse, which I also consider to be part of this area, is also a year-round well, and there is a café there you can go to for some indoor approaches. When you’re outside and it’s warm, sit by the fountain and do some work. Then just wait for a woman you want to meet. This is probably the busiest area of Central Park barring the Merchant’s Gate entrance (see below). It’s a crossroads, and you will inevitably find many women that you’ll care to approach. In fact, if she’s not open to more serious screening, you can just collect her number, go back to where you were before, and wait for another one. In this way, you can easily stack phone numbers or potentially find a woman open to something more.
This area is also an excellent transit area to everywhere else on the list. It is quite simply my central hub of operations, if you’d like to call it that.
Sheep Meadow
Make no mistake; this is the biggest goldmine in Central Park, and possibly in the country. All over this anachronistic field in the middle of the Concrete Jungle, spanning between 66th and 69th streets, there will be attractive women to meet. The months of May-September (a long time) are the peak months, as women will be here in bikinis to sunbathe in droves.
To make the most bang for your buck during this time you will want to have an aesthetic physique (12% body fat or less and some muscle), but it is not required. I don’t usually take my shirt off.
I would recommend that you go for the women that are alone. There will be a lot of them. It’s very easy to start a conversation, and since they are there doing practically nothing and, especially in the case of the sunbathers, looking for male attention, are often happy to flirt.
Even in the months below the peak of the season in Central Park, women will often be around and happy to chat. That’s probably the real purpose of this Meadow. It’s to go out and pretend like you’re doing something but really want to meet someone cool. That’s not entirely accurate, but to a large degree it is.
Aside from the goldmine of girls, you might also meet some new friends here too. I met an enduring friend there last year, and I use the word “enduring” not because of time, but because he’s of the right mindset. Be on the lookout for general opportunities to expand your social circle.
Sheep Meadow is closed from December to sometime in March however, so the mine will not be available all year like Bethesda/Mall, which is just up the block from here.
The Great Lawn
While not as good as Sheep Meadow in terms of density and volume, the Great Lawn is similar in that many women go here to sunbathe and relax in the peak months. Fewer girls come after the peak and you’re better off going to Sheep Meadow from October until December.
You won’t find as many people to talk to, but the greater size and lower density of the Great Lawn does convey a good logistical advantage – there’s less people to overhear so it makes flirting, especially opening, a bit easier on your mind. Although no one really cares about you opening a girl, as I mentioned above, there may nevertheless be a mental feeling of awkwardness (primarily in your mind, but that’s what matters), that may tell you to not open and cast doubt. Those doubts are always removed here.
The Great Lawn is also a good transition point. You can easily make the journey to other places on this guide from here, meaning if you’re planning for a round trip, it’s a good place to stop by.
The Great Lawn, like Sheep Meadow, is closed from December to March.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
To be clear, I’m talking about the walkway here, not inside (that would be an entirely different post).
There are many places to sit outside of the Museum, and it’s right up the path from the Great Lawn. This makes it an ideal spot to observe, because in terms of sheer volume, more, women will come by here than in almost any other location in this guide, though a much higher proportion of them won’t be alone, which is the trade-off. This location is almost a cross between a street and a park, so your approaches likely won’t be stationary, but the social atmosphere of Central Park is still present.
In terms of flavor, you’ll get the most international density at this spot. Name a country and a girl from there can probably be found here. If you’re looking explicitly for tourists or foreign women, this is the spot you’ll find the most of them in in terms of sheer numbers and percentage of the women you see.
This, like the Bethesda area, is a well that you can mine year-round. Women will be coming and going to the museum at any time of the year, though obviously there won’t be many people sitting around outside during the lean months.
The Central Park Reservoir
You’ll find this just north of the Great Lawn. It’s a great circle that you can walk around (though try not to get sand in your shoes). There are several notable stops somewhat akin to “stations,” the biggest one being an entrance of sorts on 90th street.
I haven’t gone here in a while. It’s not as great an area as the others in terms of volume and logistics, as many of the attractive women you’ll see will be joggers, but the 90th street stop and the observatories around it, like the one near the Great Lawn, can often yield you a nice number of women to approach. It’s also a popular tourist spot. For some reason, I’ve seen a lot of girls from Germany here, but my sample size is not too large so don’t take that as gospel.
If you want to take your shot here, the best places to go are the big “stations” near the Great Lawn and 90th street, though the latter is a bit far from my normal route.
Bow Bridge and Surrounding Path
Just a block north from Bethesda, you’ll find a path that leads to this bridge and, above a hill, a smaller fountain. This is also a year-round well from which you can draw, and the hill invites many sunbathers in the peak months (though if you’re looking for those you’re probably better served in Sheep Meadow).
This is probably the most charming place in the park, and you can easily segue it into openers. An easy and obvious one is to ask a woman you like to take your picture in front of the bridge, as many tourists come here for precisely that reason. It’s also a nice way to approach groups if you feel that you must. This can easily transition into conversation about parks in other cities and what the scenery is like, allowing you to move on into your normal routine seamlessly.
If you continue to follow the path north on the far side of the bridge, you’ll find yourself in a maze of sorts with many twists and turns which eventually lead to Belvedere Castle and the Great Lawn.
This path hasn’t yielded much for me, but it’s a scenic, if somewhat exhausting, transit route. It’s about as close as you can get to a “nature trail” in New York City.
You may find that Bow Bridge is less efficient at finding girls by themselves though. For some reason, this area doesn’t yield nearly as many single girls as Bethesda does, even though it’s just up the path. There are many guided tours with flocks of people that come to this spot. Still, if you’re going to go to one place, you may as well go to the other.
The 67th Street Entrance & Surrounding Area
The gazebo above is really one of the most picturesque of the fall transformations that occur in the park. Unfortunately, it’s not a great place to go, as it’s usually filled with groups of tourists or kids out of school. I haven’t yet seen a single lone woman up there to be opened.
This is the entrance that I usually use. There’s a statue of Balto right up the path that is popular among tourists.
I met the best and most enduring woman I’ve met in Central Park on a bench in this area.
There are also two fields you can find by following the path to your right when you enter Central Park from here. Women go there in the peak months to sunbathe. It’s not as popular in the off months, but you’ll still be able to find girls in the spring and fall also. The benches at the entrance are a popular place to sit, so your logistics are easy. This is so because this entrance is right up the block from the Central Park Zoo.
Despite this, the volume is still lower than what you’ll find at Bethesda, the Great Lawn, or Sheep Meadow, so this spot is best used as a transitory part, the start of your journey (or end of it), rather than your main destination. That’s what it’s for, anyway.
Merchant’s Gate & Surrounding Area
This is the most used entrance of Central park. Right across the street from Columbus Circle on 57th street, there is always busy foot traffic here. There are many women by themselves here, whether in the park itself or on the street near Columbus Circle (or in it). I’ve done many successful approaches here. It’s also a year-round well from which you can draw. During December there’s a Christmas market that opens up and you’ll find many women willing to talk as they shop.
There is also a kiosk that serves coffee, and you can find women drinking coffee just like any old Starbucks. You can easily transition to your normal coffee shop routine, but since it’s outside, there is a bit less pressure on the girl, so you can take advantage of that.
On the street itself, it’s often a mixture of park routine and standard street routine, as outside the Met. This is because many women are either coming or going from Central Park. If you see a girl in a rush, she’s probably headed for the subway across the street, so I wouldn’t bother.
When you enter the park, you will find a field that women use to sunbathe during the peak months. Just up the way from there, you’ll find the baseball fields which girls sometimes use, but not many (most of them go to Sheep Meadow just a bit further north). If you move a bit to the east of here, you’ll find an entrance with another field that women use to sunbathe in the peak months.
In terms of sheer volume of potential women to talk to, this area of Central Park is among the highest on this guide, rivaling the Met and Bethesda. If your day to day route is anywhere near it, I say take it.
74th Street Conservatory Water
This is a crowded area, and the famous Alice in Wonderland statue (pictured above) is on its northern side. In the early fall of 2014, I saw Secretary of State John Kerry with his security detail marching through here.
I know, I would have loved to hurl some quip, but best not to.
In more practical terms, this is an area again, that you can use all year, although activity drops dramatically in the winter months, much more so, I’ve found, than other areas, so I wouldn’t bother with this place in those months unless I’m passing through.
Despite the high volume, I’ve found that this area does yield less density of young, attractive, and alone women to approach than Bethesda, the Met (both easily reachable from here), or Merchant’s Gate.
But there are some good graces to this area – there is a hill and field at the south end where women go to sunbathe in the peak months. Women here will also typically be stationary on the numerous benches and thus very approachable.
Wollman Rink & Surrounding Area
In the winter, this place is a skating rink, and in the summer, it’s a carnival of sorts. There are a couple of fields where girls go to sunbathe in the peak months. Across the way, there is a game center where you can sit and read or play chess, though women usually show up in that spot with someone else. This area will probably do the most for you in the winter, but I don’t care for ice skating.
Wollman Rink is a nice transit area too. From here you can easily go to Bethesda and Sheep Meadow, Merchant’s Gate, or if you go straight down, to the streets near the Apple Store, which will always have a high volume, though the women are more likely to be in a rush. Still, it’s a fantastic shopping area, with some places to sit, and during the Christmas season you can take advantage of this.
Conclusion:
These are the areas I most often visit. You might be surprised at the fact that I have not mentioned a very famous part of Central Park – Strawberry Fields. I haven’t because the area is very small and crowded, often with people playing guitar and asking for money, so logistics aren’t as good. Furthermore, for some reason you’ll never find attractive young girls that are alone. They’re always in groups. I haven’t found one to approach at this location yet. So I’d recommend avoiding it.
Meeting women in Central Park can be a unique experience, because, once again, girls are often in a far more social mood than they would be in other venues, certainly on the street. This can be a great advantage to you, and Central Park attracts women from all over the world. Opening is also very easy, whether directly or indirectly. Many girls will ask you for directions, and you can easily bring a few props to break open the conversation. If they’re foreign, show them some pictures that you take as they will often pique their curiosity. It’s easy to arrange for an instant date from there because you can offer to show them the area that you took a picture of. Being a born and raised native, with a personal connection to the park, gives me some street cred, but if you apply these tips they should work for you too.
I hope that if you’re in New York City and it’s convenient enough, you’ll take advantage of this immense resource, and that this guide gave you a massive head start. If you’re an experienced Central Park approacher and would like to add anything, feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear from you.
By the way, if you like any of the photos in this guide, all of which were taken by me, I’m selling a ton more on Fiverr. If you’d like to buy some, whether to use for your blog, social media, or any other need, click here.
If you still need to build up your confidence before going out here, you should read Stumped
.
