I met most of my best friends on OKCupid.com. True, it’s ostensibly a dating website, but there’s such a thin line between friends and more than friends, it seems as good a place as any.

It’s full of guys I like and who are like me, plus as an added benefit it’s one of those reputable dating sites where you won’t see someone’s junk before learning their name. That’s the way it worked with Jake: OKCupid suggested us as a match, so we exchanged a set of winks, followed by a series of witty e-mails and then went on 10 dates in 5 days. I felt like a gay hipster Julia Roberts. Anyway, tragic story short, a couple of months later we stopped dating—something about me writing something crazy in my blog, blah, blah, blah, me standing outside his house blasting Peter Gabriel on a stereo, yadda yadda—and settled into bestie-hood.

One night Jake and I were sitting in Woody’s, trying valiantly to resist the charms of the obviously heterosexual shot boy, when Jake looked across the bar and remarked, “Oh, hey, there’s PeachPit.” I thought we were playing “Shout out things that have to do with 90210” so I responded, “Donna Martin graduates!” This is what passes for fun. Jake elaborated: turns out PeachPit is the OKCupid screen name of the guy he’d seen across the bar. As the evening wore on, Jake proved extremely adept at pointing out guys whose profiles he’d seen on-line and identifying them by their screen names, and sometimes an interesting tidbit. “There’s Zombiesloveme. He’s a runner and he hates strawberries.” It was like watching an Academy Awards pre-show where everyone was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It reminded me, also, of the first time I went to the old Five Spot for their Sunday night LGBT hip-hop party. I walked in, surveyed the crowd of vaguely familiar faces, and shouted to my friend, “This place is like Adam4Adam: The Musical”

Not that that’s a bad thing.

The stigma of meeting people on-line has waned significantly in recent years and in a lot of metropolitan areas—Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston—sites like OKCupid that appeal to a young, hip demographic have even risen to prominence as a preferred venue for meeting the likeminded. It makes sense; a lot of the guys on OKCupid are similar to Jake—a total dream who knows his way around a pair of “jorts”; equally enamored with Rachel Maddow as with Adam Lambert; has a Masters degree in a helping profession and the ability to take a cheeky self-portrait.

After that night at Woody’s, I started noticing OKCupid guys everywhere. Well, not everywhere. Certain types of guys are attracted to the site and others don’t care for it and it seems, through my completely anecdotal, expert experience, that the same kinds of guys frequent the same establishments, making it so much easier to get a glimpse and confirm if that profile picture is really just the result of good lighting. So, without further ado, four surprising local places to find that guy whose profile you’ve been stalking:

Sisters on a Thursday
The popular ladies bar fills to the gills with fellas in fashion flannel and fedoras on Thursdays as Suzi Nash hosts karaoke downstairs and the latest in pop and remixes spins on the dance floor. Looking out across the shaggy-haired expanse of dancing boys, faces lit from the glow of their foursquare updating, you’ll be hard-pressed to spot someone you haven’t previously seen in thumbnail form.

First Person Arts Story Slams
OKCupid users are a literate bunch—a large number of profiles list teaching professions, grad school or in-progress novels—so it makes sense that these same folks would show up at a bi-monthly storytelling event. All stories come from members of the audience, chosen at random from a bucket of volunteers and the tales told are by turns touching, lurid and hilarious. Those who’ve found a connection on-line are apt to attend, as well, as the Slams make for a great, inexpensive date night.

Philadelphia Naked Bike Ride
Just because you won’t see a given OKCupid user’s twig and berries on his profile doesn’t mean he’s not interested in stripping down and showing them off, especially for a worthy cause. A quick survey of the site shows that most users are passionate about something—vegans, policy wonks, car-sharers, tree-scarf-knitters, bike-riders and all manner of other conscientious individuals abound. Surprisingly, the best place to spy that PBR-drinking otter cub Log Cabin Republican that caught your eye may be biking down Market Street in his birthday suit.

Super Fresh on South Street
It’s a given that there’s an abundance of hipsters and grad students on OKCupid and, let’s face it, they’re a frugal bunch. Whole Foods is great for acai berries and quinoa and free samples, but it’s sometimes a lot more prudent to get the basics across the street for less. Regular shopping excursions are best left to those who already have boyfriends, cars that don’t have to be returned at the end of the day and enough money to not have a roommate. For the rest of us it’s all about looking cute at Super Fresh. In all seriousness, though, I have yet to walk into this place without seeing someone from the site. I once saw a guy dressed in the exact same outfit as his profile picture, including the book tucked under his arm and the shy smile. It’s always amazing when real life is like the Internet.

So, say you’ve been visiting ExclamationPt’s profile for a month now but can’t get up the nerve to wink or send a message. As a general rule, the far less creepy option is leaving the house. Grab a fro-yo, stop by the market. Chances are you’ll see somebody you’ve noticed on-line and as both of your hands reach for the Kashi at the same time you’ll get the chance to do something you could never do on the Internet: say “hello.”