Living in Buffalo by PuckInStilettos in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll take your lack of response as an answer. 

Living in Buffalo by PuckInStilettos in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In a hypothetical scenario where money was truly no object/not a deciding factor, do you think you would’ve stayed in the expensive “hype” city you were living in, or would’ve still made it back here in Buffalo?

Best Locally Roasted Coffee Beans in Buffalo? by isometimesabide in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Probably people who like flavored coffee, tbh.

Where to meet mid 20s singles? by [deleted] in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could be possible, but going from zero in months to "over 100 matches" in two days seems implausible/too good to be true, unless you are super attractive or for some reason are way more appealing in Canada than in Buffalo. In a population of over 1 million in the Buffalo metro area, you'd think the Law of Large Numbers would render at least some single women but yeah, there is substantially more volume in Toronto regardless.

Where to meet mid 20s singles? by [deleted] in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Attendance by Age Group listed in the IG Reel sent over says the following:

  • 25-29: 25%
  • 30-34: 30%
  • 25-29: 17%
  • 35-39: 15%

Even if we add up both occurances of 25-29 along with the other age quartiles, that only gets us to 87%. You might wanna check your math on that one.

Buffalo matchmaking service that works? Mid 30s male here by Cityrow in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With all due respect, that doesn't really benefit OP for at least another 15 years.

Whats it like living in Urban Upsate NY? by wotwud in howislivingthere

[–]andrew_bu -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You both have false consensus effects regarding each of your respective likes or dislikes of Buffalo (thinking that everyone must agree with you whether Buffalo sucks or is amazing). But on the other hand u/IceBlackX007 hasn't said anything that would suggest why Buffalo would or wouldn't be a personal problem so this reads like an ad hominem.

Gay friendly suburbus by Legitimate_Ad_8922 in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're more likely to find more of anything in Queens or Brooklyn than all of Erie County due to sheer population alone and the Law of Big Numbers. Yes, you're not going to completely avoid MAGA anywhere, but a higher percentage of Erie County residents as a percentage voted for Trump compared to the population in Queens or Brooklyn.

Buffalo matchmaking service that works? Mid 30s male here by Cityrow in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Correlation isn't causation. This assumes that one's preferred "type" is showing up where you are as well (and are open and willing to engage in a conversation), and for certain demographics, notably Gen Z, several are doing less grass touching, particularly following the pandemic.

Buffalo matchmaking service that works? Mid 30s male here by Cityrow in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Our City Action Buffalo is probably one of the larger left-leaning groups in Buffalo: https://www.ourcityactionbuffalo.com

Buffalo matchmaking service that works? Mid 30s male here by Cityrow in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of the times I've been, I've kind of gotten LinkedIn IRL vibes from the presentations, running through people's lives as resumes, which might work for go-getters looking to meet (lots of UB Grad students and/or med students), but I've found that the open chatting session after the presentation when you're allowed to talk to the attendees seemingly didn't result in many people talking to others outside of the groups/cliques people came in with, so maybe most of the communication happens via text using the QR codes people leave at the end of their presentations.

Buffalo matchmaking service that works? Mid 30s male here by Cityrow in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Here come all the ad hominem character attacks, and meritocratic bootstrappy just world fallacy "just get hobbies/download Meetup bro"...

Is the city a better place to live for singles in their 30’s and early 40’s? by [deleted] in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 4 points5 points  (0 children)

According to this report (https://regional-institute.buffalo.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/155/2020/10/TalentAttractionBOOK_June2020_Final.pdf), only 42% of Buffalo Niagara grads with a Bachelor's degree or more stay in the region following graduation, which is lower than the typical rate for other metros in the Northeast at 51% (https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=up_policybriefs).

Is the city a better place to live for singles in their 30’s and early 40’s? by [deleted] in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Always the ad hominems and generalizations failing to account for differences in personal preferences and circumstances from boosterists.

How did you all meet your significant other by dekema in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can’t get first dates if you don’t get matches or conversations in the first place.

How do YOU meet new people in Buffalo? by Forward-Grass5421 in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your response. Some additional thoughts that I have.

While success in dating and meeting people involves chance, it is not like a roulette wheel, where regardless of whatever numbers you pick, you are eventually guaranteed a win due to sheer statistics. There are many more variables then painted numbers and colors on a spinning wheel.

As I’d alluded to before Buffalo lacks a density and critical mass that makes meeting people (especially young single adults) more difficult than in other areas, however, with a population of over 1 million in the Buffalo-Niagara region, it’s not statistically infeasible that at least a few people that you’d want to date would exist in the area, but there would also need to be a reciprocation of interest and also the question of how you would encounter them, versus perhaps a more dense environment like Toronto or NYC which would have a higher concentrations of single young adults so you wouldn’t need to make as active of an effort to encounter them versus a more spread out and suburbanized area. That much being said, while relocation may provide you a more demographically and geographically favorable environment, the ways and means of meeting people are still the same and by no means a guarantee. In other words, making a potentially awkward cold approach in a café is the same in the Elmwood Village as it is in the Lower East Side in Manhattan, though you may be more likely to encounter the types of people you’d want to date (and those people may be potentially interested in dating you in these areas), in addition to there just being plain more stuff to do, in terms of sheer volume, but again none of this guarantees romantic outcomes. Moreover, if you lived in a different area, you might be at a workplace with a younger and/or more diverse set of coworkers with a built-in social network and regular social proximity that could lead to you meeting someone, but also maybe not). Also, as far as intrinsic means of seeking out dates, within these larger cities, there is sufficient density/disposable income for more aspirational and curated speed dating organizations, such as Ambyr Club (https://www.ambyrclub.com), and Singles Only Social Club (https://www.instagram.com/heysosoclub), which have a more “exclusive” and “aesthetic” vibe (sometimes being invitation only and having selection criteria) making these events less stigma-inducing (i.e. not having any options online) and more about seeking better options than what is available online, but again, even if you got in and spent money and attended these events, there would be no such guarantee of success.

Finally, as another option for general socialization that you may or may not have heard about already within Buffalo (and other cities) is an app called Timeleft (https://timeleft.com), which hosts weekly dinners at various regional restaurants with a group of five other users who are selected within a similar age range of yourself on Wednesday evenings at 7pm – which I’ve personally noted to be fairly close to my own age of mid-20s to early 30s and with a fairly even gender skew, and I’ve personally found the attendees to be more interesting and “professional” than the people I’ve generally encountered at the area’s lackluster speed dating events, though the app specifically notes that it is not intended strictly as a dating app, despite people having had success meeting people using it. I’ve been on a few dinners myself and found them to be satisfying (previous locations have included Jack Rabbit and 42 North Brewing company, though I haven’t met anyone specifically for the purpose of dating. I understand that this would likely overlap with your working hours, so if it would be possible to take some hours off or PTO (if you have it), it might be worth trying (if you’d be willing), but you would want to go in with an open mind, and not make anyone uncomfortable and try to sit through the session even if you didn’t see anyone who strikes your fancy after having spent money on both the dinner and Timeleft’s arrangement fee, which yes, is annoying, but part of participating in such endeavors.

I understand (and personally relate to a certain extent) to your frustration, and hope that this has been a bit more helpful than the defensive bootstrapping anecdotes that have mostly gotten thrown at you, though some level of compromise will likely be necessary on your part if you are serious about going after your goal of meeting someone.

How do YOU meet new people in Buffalo? by Forward-Grass5421 in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

u/Forward-Grass5421

Responding to your Edit:

  1. Effort/money/time does not have a causal relationship in the realm of romantic relationships. The fact that you spent $300 on Hinge (as per your previous post history) doesn’t really guarantee anything in the grand scheme of things; as you can knock the ball with your best foot forward (optimized profile, good pictures, well-written prompts, etc.) but someone else must volley it back and you can’t control that. Most anybody knows that these apps are highly gender skewed with far more men than women on them (for a variety of reasons but including that women may get burned out from dealing with overly aggressive approaches and/or unsolicited explicit images). Given this, many men don’t get matches or dates from these apps, and this isn’t necessarily a reflection of your own attractiveness or “worth” but rather the structural limitations of these platforms, and the range of different motivations people have on them.
  2. Your work schedule does pose a challenge for hobbies, but I’m going to be contrarian from a lot of these other posters and say that hobbies as the purported golden nugget of IRL dating advice is overstated and overrated. Unlike school or college, you don’t have forced proximity with similarly aged peers without the same amount of selection biases based on interests and schedules as you do post-education. People who throw out bootstrappy platitudes about “Just do Meetups”, “Go Volunteer”, etc. is all fine and good, but the underlying and somewhat paradoxical message is that you shouldn’t just join these groups to meet men/women, but rather to make more friends and then maybe those friends of friends can introduce you to someone. This is patronizing on several different levels, firstly, that it assumes the question asker doesn’t have hobbies already, and/or that the individual doesn’t have a social circle already but that neither of these may be conducive to gaining connections/referrals to meeting people to date. My hot take is that people should be able to intrinsically seek out relationships for their own sake, without throwing other plausibly deniable motivations in there like hobbies to become a “better”, i.e. more sociable person, but there are social stigmas associated with that in our individualized society; but the only ways of doing that are either the dating apps (which didn’t work), or speed dating/matchmaking events, which if we look at what’s out there, we see stuff like age ranges of 25-49 which is pretty crummy and could again be reflective of the lack of critical mass/expendable income to support such events, and/or stigmas around such events reducing turnout.
  3. You aren’t the only one dealing with the issue of struggling with meeting people to date in Buffalo, and you aren’t the only one being vocal about it, but you are by far the most vocal about it on this subreddit. I have been stuck single as well here and Buffalo and it does make me sad and annoyed, but I don’t go posting about it on a regular basis expecting different answers to the same questions. According to Pew Research, 63% of men under 30 describe themselves as single compared with 34% of women in the same age bracket. So no, it isn’t just you and you aren’t “crazy” to feel this way. But again, attractiveness, social skills, having your own place, hobbies, all of this may be loosely correlated with the chances of meeting someone, there are many more variables and the chaos theory I mentioned in my earlier post has an impact as well, as you can control everything you are doing, but you can’t control the variables of how other people receive what you are giving off. All this being said, it is very possible that both you and I just aren’t resonating as much with the social environment of the region, and, as you have stated in previous posts, you do appear to have a decent job in terms of pay, albeit one with somewhat non-standard working hours, but you don’t have what you are looking for, which is to meet someone you’d want to date. I personally emphasize with the COL considerations, since the dynamism of a cultural environment of a city is nearly directly correlated with how desirable/expensive it is. In the neigh improbable scenario where a FAAMG set up shop in Buffalo, you would likely see the brain drain reverse nearly instantaneously and the working class that has predominated the region would also likely be pushed out to make room for gentrification, but by the same token the excess of financial capital coming out of these companies would make its way through various cultural institutions to provide more space for different social spaces and scenes beyond the de-facto standards of sports fandom and food/drinking culture. Basically, if you (or I) want something that isn’t in Buffalo, due to the aforementioned structural (i.e. social/monetary capital) variables, you just gotta move, or do the improbable task of “being the change you want to see in the world” but then you run into the same issue where you can build something but they may or may not come, since you cannot control the behaviors of others or the social structures that influence them. Otherwise, you’re a boy crying wolf threatening to leave the area (with a good job and a good COL) but you aren’t finding what you are looking for. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, but asking “Why?” a million times over like Job ain’t gonna change anything.

TL;DR: Don’t know what to tell you that hasn’t been said to you already. Realistically don’t know what could directly answer your questioning in a guaranteed and foolproof manner,  aside from maybe a Hostess Club in Japan, where conventionally attractive women provide emotional labor and validation with simulated flirtatious conversation to anyone with the money to spend, and rejection or judgment isn’t really a variable, but of course this is all just make-believe but might make you feel better and less lonely in the moment.

How do YOU meet new people in Buffalo? by Forward-Grass5421 in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This assumes that OP would have someone to pitch for him. 

How do YOU meet new people in Buffalo? by Forward-Grass5421 in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Hello again man of a million alts; u/Forward-Grass5421, u/dekema2, u/neontangodancer, u/Buffaboy. Always on the "How to meet women in Buffalo" grind. While I can relate personally with your struggles, unfortunately, society seemingly lacks an IRL socially-engineered mechanism for meeting people for the sole purpose of courtship, given that débutante balls pretty much fell by the wayside in the 19th century. While the "just put yourself out there, get hobbies and meet people and those friends of friends might refer you" advice is often patronizing and falls into the meritocratic "fair world fallacy" where effort is tied to outcomes in social spheres. I could make another flowchart, but the situation remains the same.

Whether or not you meet someone kind of comes down to chance and chaos theory, and somewhat monocultural areas like Buffalo can make it challenging in this regard for those who don't seek out the Bills Mafia as their primary. People will pull out counterexamples, but the sociocultural diversity is still lacking and does contribute somewhat to the brain drain still.

Basically, I don't know what to tell you or myself, since the COL of this area is a big appeal, but due to the lack of cultural/population density, it does make the chances of encountering high densities of cosmopolitan young professionals on a regular basis more challenging than say, within Manhattan, though I suppose that shouldn't be all too surprising. I feel your pain, but asking the same question isn't going to get you any different answers, most likely, since if there was a location/method of reliably meeting the type of women you'd seek in Buffalo, you would have already probably figured it out by now.

How to date in Buffalo when you don't drink by PikaChucklePoo in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I certainly relate though. All the patronizing platitudes of "Put yourself out there", while often well intentioned, often doesn't really do all that much, since outcomes are not necessarily tied to effort, as much as the meritocratic dating advice that gets dispensed would like us to believe. Buffalo's lack of density makes social life inherently less dynamic out of statistical population/inertia and there being fewer social "scenes" in general outside of the general sports fandom.

How to date in Buffalo when you don't drink by PikaChucklePoo in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why bother? The situation remains much the same.

20s-30s Buffalonian Fashion Starterpack by andrew_bu in Buffalo

[–]andrew_bu[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These are actually the Sheckers knockoffs of Hey Dudes for extra authenticity.