In 1980s psychological parlance, the most common places to find partners were:

1. Work
2. School
3. Church
4. Friends of family
5. Friends of friends

In the 1990s and aughts, we were already seeing that things had shifted. Fewer people were engaged in their church group. There was more awareness of sexual harassment at work (and power dynamics that could interfere with regular human interaction). People also had fewer friends and less contact with their extended family. This resulted in more people clubbing (and functioning by one-night stands) and otherwise looking for better places to find eligible partners.

I was in the psychiatric sector both as a patient and a peer counselor, and they recommended activity groups. Frisbee golf, knitting, puzzle-building, backgammon, gardening, etc. I sucked at those, but I was dating during the golden age of Craigslist personal ads. We still have sexual harassment in the workplace in 2024, often from upper-management on the clerical pool, which means for anyone not in upper management, they're being micromanaged and kept from propositioning fellow employees. But curiously in the 1970s and 1980s employees often dated and married.