People say they're looking for dates at Home Depot. A TikToker breaks down the best aisles to meet someone new.

Oct 09, 2023

There's a joke on social media where people are going to Home Depot to meet someone new.

TikToker Patrick Linder made a viral video about the best places in the store to meet professionals.

The video went viral. Linder has since made follow-ups about the best times to go.

It's become a joke on TikTok that if dating apps fail you, the next-best place to pick someone up is at the home-improvement store Home Depot.

TikTok videos about Home Depot have taken off, with 4.4 billion views on the search "Home Depot Dating" alone on the app.

For anyone who wants to take the trend seriously, TikToker Patrick Linder — a 34-year-old architect and builder who typically posts home-improvement and construction videos under his handle @ArchitectDaddy — has broken down the best places in the store to actually meet someone (as well as where he suggests not to go).

Linder would know — having been in the industry for 14 years, he became a licensed architect during the pandemic and runs his own business, Partners Design Build.

"I'm there all the time," the Detroit-based Linder told Insider about Home Depot. "I go three or four times a day."

"I get it too because I'm on a job site and I'm like 'that contractor's a hunk and that contractor's a hunk,'" he added.

The video that he filmed with his nearly-2-year-old son struck a chord, having been viewed 3 million times and liked over 550,000 times.

The tile aisle - "This is perfect. Guys here: They're jacked, they make really good money, and they do some of their best work horizontally," Linder joked in his video.

Plumbing and electrical fittings - "These aisles are for guys who are in the trades, they're professionals," he said.

Tool hub aka what Linder calls the "fishing hole" — "What you're going to do is cast around the power tools, making judgment calls, and then finish in hand tools." (As an added tip, Linder said if you're looking to buy something yourself, remember: "If it's lime, you don't have the time. If it's orange or yellow, he's a good fellow. And if it's red, build a homestead," he said, referencing the branded color of the tools.)

And then end your search in the hand tool aisle - "This is essentially Target for men," Linder said. "We will spend 30-40 minutes in this aisle convincing ourselves to buy something that we don't need. This is where you close. Best spot in the whole store."

Paint and gardening sections - "Stay away from the paint section and the garden section. No man is ever here for himself, he's always doing a project for his girlfriend or his wife," according to Linder.

Lumber - "Any carpenter knows that real timber is delivered on-site," he said. "This is amateur wood and we both know you deserve better. That's why they have tools here because they don't have tools themselves."

In follow-up videos, Linder responded to questions like what you should say you're looking for in each aisle and the best times to go to the store (early morning, Linder says).

Linder told Insider his next videos will be about the best aisles for LGBTQ people since that could be different than the locations he references in his first video.

"There has been an interesting secondary conversation and one that I'm actually making a video for right now for what do you do if you're homosexual — ladies looking for ladies and men looking for men — because the math is entirely different, sections are entirely different," he said, adding that his gay friends are helping him test the theories.

Linder also mentioned that Lowe's appeared to be the best place for women looking for women.

"The comments I've gotten back from the women is Lowe's is actually the best spot for ladies looking for ladies. Home Depot is not the best spot," he told Insider.

Outside of TikTok, Linder and his company Partners Design Build are currently working with Birth Detroit, Michigan's first Black-led freestanding, community birth center and Detroit's first birth center. When it comes to his social media, Linder told Insider he'll keep posting on TikTok and that he's glad his videos are helping people meet each other.

"We just came out of a pandemic where we were all isolated and looking for someone to spend our life with," Linder told Insider. "The modern world is very lonely and dating apps and being connected by an algorithm for things that you think that you want but actually don't is actually very different."

"If I can give people an opportunity to meet others in real life and create a beautiful family and a life that you never thought was possible, like yeah. Shoot your shot," he continued. "Maybe it's at Home Depot."

Read the original article on Insider