Books & Co. is always the place where things happen and when singles are looking for a safe place to mingle, there's a Books & Chill Singles Night that's worth checking out Feb. 24 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Kayli Vandermeer, Books & Co. bookstore manager, got the idea after talking to a friend who worked at the Prince George Public Library, which has also hosted events for singles.
They would talk about the idea often to see how it would work for those bookish people that weren't into the hardcore nature of most singles events, which was a common complaint among those on social media, Vandermeer said.
"You don't really see singles' nights for the more introverted people," she added.
"So we wanted to see what the interest would be and we've probably been tossing the idea around for the last six months trying to figure out how we were going to do it and how it would work best and then we just took the leap."
Vandermeer and the staff at Books & Co. are always open to suggestions and invite people to add their prose to their page on Facebook.
"We've come together as a staff to come up with how we're going to run it and what we're going to do to make it fun and interesting and so far it looks really good," said Vandermeer.
Willow at Moonstone Awakenings has volunteered to be on hand for the Books & Chill Singles' Night to do Tarot readings for those interested.
"So in the future as we do more and more of these events I am hoping to get the fun things in town that people don't realize Prince George has to offer and so we can let them come in and let them have the spotlight for the evening," said Vandermeer.
To make things easier for participants who might be reluctant to attend there are colour-coded buttons specially printed for the book-loving singles.
"I have a good amount of friends who would love to do this kind of thing but at singles' nights it's usually a very outgoing event, you have to really put yourself out there and there's not a lot of room to just go and hang out in the back a little bit and see what's going on before you test out some of the extroverted stuff."
Vandermeer wanted to find a way to bring in the people that don't want to do a lot of activities and just check things out and possibly meet some like-minded people.
The buttons work like this: if a participant chooses to wear a green button it means they are up for talking to anyone and open to playing all the games scheduled for the event like scrabble or chess and dipping their hands into the question jar to perhaps use as a conversation starter.
"We're hoping those green-button people will be entertaining for the evening and we're going to have some fun with it," said Vandermeer.
The orange buttons are for those middle-ground people who might be a bit shy and are testing the waters, she added.
"Orange buttons are those that aren't entirely sure they want to stay for the whole evening," said Vandermeer.
"And pink is more for the person who just wants to scope everything out and doesn't want to be hit with a bunch of pick up lines.
"They prefer to approach people rather than be approached and that's our way to mitigate some of our concerns that we might get people who don't have the best intentions for a singles' night. So people that don't feel comfortable with that possibility can grab a pink button and then you've got a little safety net to catch you if you find yourself interacting with someone you don't really want to be."
Vandermeer said she's pretty happy with the system they've inked out.
"I think it's going to do a lot for people's comfort levels and hopefully encourage people to come out and meet up, make new friends and have conversations," said Vandermeer.
"We're hoping - because I still think this is the coolest thing on the Internet - that instead of people buying you a drink in a bar people can buy you a book in a shop. I think that would be a really neat concept and would do a lot more good for the potential conversation than just buying a drink."
