I can't really comment. I hate traditional parties and bars and just don't go to them. Small parties with friends who are verifiably not loud and obnoxious are good, and so are dinner parties. Basically most generic group interaction modes are just loud and dumb. No thanks.

I go to quiet cafés when I want to think or relax, and mentally I'm not in the headspace of evaluating mates. I guess I'd be open to a woman who made the first move in that situation, but I don't expect it. Even when I go to concerts, it's generally (shock) to listen to music, and I try my best to tune out the existence of the crowd.

The point of serendipity is that it happens when you're not trying to make it happen. By definition, if something is industrialized and scripted, it's not serendipitous. Trawling bars or going to a party with explicit goals to evaluate potential mates is totally the opposite of what I'm talking about, and things like Tinder, while reducing some up front costs (you don't have to physically go anywhere, you don't risk in-person rejection, etc.), are like hyper mega on-steroids version of trawling with explicit mate evaluation goals.

I'm not sure I agree about the macho comment either. In my experience, trying to win the affection of intellectual women, humor is by far the most critical thing.

Here's a DFW quote that has meant a lot to me regarding my modern understanding of the personal importance of serendipity:

"Both destiny's kisses and its dope-slaps illustrate an individual person's basic personal powerlessness over the really meaningful events in his life: i.e. almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of Psst that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer."