One Edmonton woman is taking social butterfly to a whole new level after aiming to meet 5,000 people in one year.

Brittney Le Blanc decided to pursue the project 5k365 after a conversation with friend and wingman Jessica Holt about getting into the dating scene.

“People always tell you ‘put yourself out there: volunteer, go to more events, meet more people’ but I do that already with my life. … if the theory is that the more people you meet, the more likely you’re going to meet somebody, why don’t I meet 5,000 people in a year,” said Le Blanc, adding that she estimates she met 1,000 people last year through various activities.

But Le Blanc stressed that the project is about making genuine connections with people – man, woman or child – not hitting the 5K mark or falling in love.

“It’s more about the journey. I would love to meet as many people as I can and just connect with them. I love this city and I love the people who live in it, so why not meet more of them?”

Holt said her role as wingman will mostly aim to help Le Blanc meet more people, but she does think it will have an affect on her socializing as well.

“By doing this project, I hope to not only help Brittney but also face and overcome some of my own fears around meeting new people. I’ll be blogging about my own social anxieties and how I can learn to be more confident from Brittney,” she said.

But with every great goal comes great responsibility, and Le Blanc has set a series of ground rules for the project, such as “If an introduction doesn’t occur, it doesn’t count as a meeting.” She also said she will only count a meeting as a significant face-to-face conversation. If the situation presents itself, she will let the other person know about the project, but feels that it’s not always necessary. She’s also tracking her meetings in a spreadsheet, but isn’t recording personal information aside from first names and last initials.

Le Blanc estimates that she needs to meet 15 people a day to meet her goal, allowing for 25 days off in the year. In the first six days of her experiment, Le Blanc met 106 people.