Here in America, relationships usually start in bars, and end in IKEA. Over in China though, they're switching it up. Imagine knowing exactly where you could find that special someone... like Match.com, but with free coffee, swedish meatballs, and furniture with nonsensical, unappealing names like 'Blosfart' and "Wurmton.' Well guess what -- if you're an elderly Shanghai single looking for love, an endtable so bland it looks like a set prop from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or both, you're in luck. IKEA is your new dating scene.
Every week in Shanghai's Xuhui district, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club of Chinese Geriatrics cruise on down to the local IKEA and apparently start flirting like it was a middle school dance. It's a real thing -- like every Tuesday and Thursday at 2pm, it's singles night...er, afternoon. They pound free coffee and get a belly full of Soylent Meatballs, while gazing across a sea of sofas and ready-to-assemble bunkbeds hoping to find a mate... who they will somebody berate and demean for not being able to put together the same furniture that brought them together.
Exhibit A. Nobody has any idea what this means.
Strange behavior? Maybe not. Combine China's rising divorce rate with really comfortable couches and free coffee, and you have the perfect recipe for the first Swedish-Chinese international incident since ABBA played Tiananmen Square.
Anyway... the furniture store love connection scene may seem a little hectic and weird, but then again so are dating and shopping at IKEA, so maybe they have the right idea with getting them both over with at the same time. I vote "not strange."
