Charity work = Friends (and dates)?

I had a rather interesting conversation with Steven, a friend of mine today. It was all about the difficulty of making friends (or at least anything more than a one-night stand). After years of quasi marriage, my social circle is virtually non existant, as my ex and I usually stayed in a lot rather than socialise with many people.
Steven, on the other hand is one of those amazing people that seem to have a rather large and varied circle of friends. I always wondered how he manages to know so many (and so varied) people. Especially in a city like London where and it is much easier to have sex than to make friends.
Anyway, he revealed his secret to me, and it was actually pretty simple (as all good solutions are?): “Volunteering for charities!”…
Come to think about it, it makes a lot of sense. For example, he delivers meals for the Food Chain, a charity that cooks meals for people with HIV. In short, this means that every couple of weeks, he spends two hours with another person in a car delivering these meals. If he likes the person, they can go for a drink after, exchange phone numbers or whatever – or if it doesn’t click, then at least it wasn’t a wasted date/day. He doesn’t only volunteer for that one charity, but rather has a selection of three or four different ones to choose from, which explains why when he has a party there are always a lot of different (and usually very nice) people – all of whom seem to get along great, which is quite amazing really.
Anyway, I am most certainly intrigued by his solution to the friends problem – and I am now wondering which charity I should sign up for. Of course, not only to make new friends – but I think a few new friends would certainly help!

Photo by George House Trust.