It makes sense to think that living in a large city makes it easier to date. If you have a larger dating pool to choose from, you have a better chance of meeting ‘the one.’
And now with online dating becoming more prevalent, it only widens the pool, right? Well, that may be true, but how many single people really live around you? The problem with many cities in America is that the ratio of women to men is off, and that might be stopping you from meeting someone.
The Atlantic notes that there are 230,000 more single women than men in New York, and the trend continues all up and down the East coast. There are 70,000 more single women in Philadelphia, and 65,000 more single women in Washington D.C.
Alternatively, the pattern switches on the West Coast, with 50,000 more single men than women in San Diego, and 38,000 more single men in Seattle.
And these maps from the Martin Property Institute prove it:
But those numbers are only accurate when looking at all singles between the ages of 18-65. Surprisingly enough, when you narrow the pool to those only in the age range of 18-24, the number of single men outnumbers that of single women in almost all of the cities polled:
The same can be said for those between the ages of 25 and 34. But when they polled ages 35-44, the areas covered in pink became more noticable.
And then, when looking at the singles between the ages of 45 and 64, the map is almost entirely pink.
What does this tell us? More young men are single, while more older women are single? No wonder you have trouble finding a date!
Actually, as Business Insider reports, there are a lot of factors that could cause this pattern in the data, among them being that there are more male babies than female, which could account for the skew in the youngest bracket. In addition, women have a longer life expectancy, which could contribute to the latter map’s data.
The large age range skews the original data significantly. In the past, the idea was that New York women have such a hard time dating because there are so few single men (the same is often said for men living in parts of California). Well the truth is that, as people age, there become more single women than men, where as when people enter the dating world, there are many more single men almost everywhere in the country. So if you’re having trouble finding a date, you could consider moving to the other side of the country. Or, you could just try asking the cutie at the coffee shop to join you for one of these great first dates.
[Featured Image from thesinglewomanguide.com]
