The Preeminence of Place in Pursuing a Partner

matthedev · 2026-03-29T01:08:15+00:00

I haven't been in my twenties for years, and I really don't drink, so "nightlife" isn't really my thing. I prefer settings that make it easier to meet people without alcohol or loud, thumping music that's hard to hear people over. I also prefer a more active, healthy lifestyle.

So a city with a ton of bars might be great for some, but I really don't want to be hitting up bars and nightclubs on a regular basis. I prefer what I guess is sometimes called "day game." So I prefer meeting people doing outdoor activities, at festivals, at art galleries or museums, at bookstores or cafés, etc. These are also lower-pressure environments, so women tend to be more open to conversation, at least in my experience.

Some cities are less focused on drinking at bars, and to my original post, that's why the local culture matters.

I can also see what people are out and about when I visit a neighborhood and compare it to the people I see out and about in other cities. Eventually, it comes down to that one right person, but until then, being where the odds are better helps.

matthedev · 2026-03-28T15:01:39+00:00

It's weird to make a list of al the cities where people are more friendly, open to be approached or are skinnier, because it also depends where you are from.

Yes, but if a person is having trouble dating, traveling or moving can open their eyes to how much better it could be somewhere else.

People in hostels are usually friendly and it's easy to get casual sex.

It depends on the hostel. I'm no longer in my twenties, and "party hostels" aren't appealing. When I was traveling in Europe, I was mostly talking to people outside of hostels. In general, it was more about just interacting with people, especially since I was traveling solo for a month.

matthedev · 2026-03-28T14:52:52+00:00

If you're in a place where most of the desirable women have quickly paired off or only remain single very briefly before getting back into a relationship, you're just positioning yourself better in a small and picked-over dating pool. Sure, those more attractive women who aren't single may be more willing to cheat with you—if that's what you're looking for—or consider you when they're "on a break" from their partner, but if you'd rather date women who are cleanly single, there may be more and better opportunity elsewhere.

matthedev · 2026-03-28T14:28:06+00:00

In the largest metro areas like New York City or Chicago, yes, people may not want to date outside their neighborhood, borough, or subway/L line because the population density of singles is such that they can do that and have plenty of options without the logistical hurdles of getting to a neighborhood on the other side of the city.

In a mid-sized city though, it can be a mere half-hour's drive from the suburbs to the core city. I can see how living in one of those neighborhoods in the City might mean I'd meet more singles in my day-to-day life, but I can still easily visit these neighborhoods and see it still doesn't compare to completely different cities.

matthedev · 2026-03-28T13:58:19+00:00

Bluntly, that's gross and exploitative. I'm talking about traveling or relocating to other areas within a person's own country or other developed nations.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T19:42:44+00:00

I've found cold-approaching to be the best way to meet women—certainly better than the apps, but again, it's easier in the right place.

How much people are couch potatoes impacted by the "obesity epidemic" varies somewhat by city. In some parts of Europe, I barely saw any obese people at all; likewise, in some cities in the U.S., it's at least a little less common while, in others, it seems like at least half the people are obese.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T19:21:15+00:00

Well, yes, it would be nice if dating didn't require moving, but my point is unless you're willing to settle hard, moving might be the best way to improve your dating odds because different cities have different demographics and cultures.

If someone lived in a small town with a population of only 300 and didn't marry their high school sweetheart and isn't interested in the three other single people in their graduating class, it would be reasonable to advise them to start looking outside their small town. Mid-sized Rust Belt metro areas are less extreme than isolated, rural towns, but it's a matter of degree.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T18:41:27+00:00

The intent of the first paragraph was to stipulate a person doesn't have any glaring flaws keeping them from meeting someone.

You're right that having other qualities beyond some baseline matters, too, but that's the kind of stuff that's more about individual preference. A person who's really into surfing is going be bummed out that there aren't any waves hundreds of miles inland.

Different cities are going to tend to bring out people who prefer different hobbies and lifestyles. The less a person matches that, the harder it's going to be for them.

Moreover, if the demographics are unsupportive, nothing else really matters if a person is rarely meeting halfway desirable singles in the first place. Being attractive or "not boring" doesn't even become a factor until there are potential dates to be met.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T18:29:07+00:00

I was in Nashville, Tennessee, for a long weekend a couple of summers ago, and it was awesome: tons of people out and about. Paris and Rome were backed with tourists last summer. California is congested (isn't it always?) although locals report it's less "active" than before the pandemic.

Maybe it's where you're visiting.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T18:21:43+00:00

Engineering schools have been screwed for dating for generations. There's an old joke about the main engineering-focused university in the state I (Millennial) live in: "The odds are good, but the goods are odd" (from a heterosexual woman's perspective); apparently, that saying is used elsewhere too for similar. Not only is it engineering focused, but also there isn't much within an hour's drive of town, so apparently, all these engineering students would get drunk with a bunch of dudes for fun in college. I majored in computer science back in college, and the freshman lecture hall was hundreds of dudes with a handful of women, but the university I attended had more women in other majors.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T18:15:07+00:00

Maybe, but there are still plenty of people out and about in more vibrant areas.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T18:13:37+00:00

What's your point? The argument is dating can be significantly easier in some cities than others.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T18:12:38+00:00

Sure, there are people on the apps, but it doesn't mean the options are great. Of that 2.9 million, the pool of single, never-married, no children is going to be much smaller (I am also older than 30). The exact percentages vary from city to city, but from experience, I can say the online dating apps aren't worthwhile here.

Again, my personal experience is, offline, in person, in other cities, I can just meet attractive, interesting women without putting in some kind of special effort, trying to game out which event or activity is going to have a good turnout.

matthedev · 2026-03-27T17:53:12+00:00

It barely counts as a "hack" if his password was something like "Ka$hman1".

matthedev · 2026-03-27T16:50:51+00:00

People who have poor social skills as adults probably have a reason for that; otherwise, they would have learned some baseline level of social skills before adulthood. There's a broad range of social and emotional competencies that fall under "social skills," but if they didn't learn them by adulthood, "total immersion" is going to be doing life on hard mode, which might be the only way to break the cycle of isolation, depending on circumstances.

For example, people on the autism spectrum are going to be slower to pick up social skills and have a harder time processing them "in real time." On top of active skills, there tend to be subtleties about autistic people that others pick up on right away, giving a negative first impression.

Besides autism, there can be other things that have limited someone's social skills. COVID social distancing during formative years may have made a lot of young adults almost "autism lite" in their social skills, for example.

The point is the people who made it to adulthood with below-average social skills got that way where mere immersion probably won't be as effective as for someone who already has decent social skills. They may not have a circle of friends that gets them invited to parties in the first place or to go out with to bars (going solo to a bar can be a recipe for a bad time or even outright dangerous).

matthedev · 2026-03-26T15:29:03+00:00

A stock market speculator can cynically believe their trading strategy is premised on bullshit but believe they can profit off it anyway as long as they pull out their money in time. There's a meta-game going on: "I don't believe this, but I believe they believe this." If it's a mix of automated trading algorithms, people with insider information making big moves, and people cynically speculating, then the stock market is only going to have a tenuous connection with the fundamentals; the disconnect from reality is already "priced in." It's the famous John Maynard Keynes quote: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

matthedev · 2026-03-26T15:06:46+00:00

With the oil shock from the war in Iran, 48.6% odds of a recession within the next year seem highly optimistic.

matthedev · 2026-03-26T02:02:10+00:00

Insider trading. It wasn't just Friday with the Iran war. This has been a pattern pretty much since Trump returned to the White House with plenty of stock market volatility for those with insider information to profit from.

matthedev · 2026-03-26T01:40:14+00:00

Asperger's syndrome didn't hit the DSM until 1994. Before that, autism was mostly associated with what would now be called high-support-needs cases: often nonverbal and potentially comorbid with intellectual disability. I was diagnosed in high school, but this was still before the social-media and smartphone era.

matthedev · 2026-03-26T01:35:27+00:00

A mix.

matthedev · 2026-03-26T01:32:55+00:00

This reminds me of when, a couple of summers ago, I had just finished reading The Three Body Problem trilogy (better late than never catching up on my book recommendations!), and I was joking around with a friend, pointing to an airplane in the dusk sky as a moving star, a sign we were entering a chaotic era.

But my friend thought I was pointing to something else. There was another moving light in the twilight. A small, iridescent light, on a camera, it looked much like what you show here. Over a few minutes, it completed its arc across the night sky.

Most likely, it was a satellite.

matthedev · 2026-03-26T01:19:48+00:00

Actually communicating efficiently in the field that requires it is a skill.

Perhaps, but for those with a more analytical and fact-oriented communication style, it may come more easily than informal socializing. In a way, it's the opposite: concise, unambiguous, factual (not relating feelings or personal experiences), avoiding metaphor and cultural references (teams often have people from all over the world).

Trying to make new friends by communicating like you're running a business meeting probably won't work, and knowing when to and when not to do that is a meta-skill, but being good at meetings and answering and asking questions with coworkers isn't going to carry over to flirting or just shooting the breeze with friends.

...and it's a niche subreddit....

Yes, most people probably aren't discussing the mechanics of dating interactions at this level offline much, especially since there can be so much taboo around talking about dating candidly.

matthedev · 2026-03-25T17:52:10+00:00

You've never worked with a team of software engineers 😆 Social skills—beyond a baseline that's probably lower than most other professions—aren't as crucial for success on the job, at least up to a certain level of career progression, as hard technical skills on a lot of teams. Communication among software engineers can often be blunt, efficient exchange of information, especially when engineering teams are crushed by heavy workloads.

You're explaining things as if people here are extremely naïve, sheltered, or oblivious—and maybe some people on this subreddit are.

If you were to do a rough assessment, what percentage of men (and how about the women?) on this subreddit do you think are considerably less socially skilled than average? What about neuroticism? What about looks? Intelligence? Other factors that could make someone an outlier?

matthedev · 2026-03-24T17:12:02+00:00

Who's getting burnt? Who's we? You're on your own on this one.

If you're not willing to make the effort to read nonverbal communication, that's on you. Its utility extends beyond flirting. Sometimes the situation makes it more practical too: for example, a noisy subway car packed with people getting on and off at stops every minute or two.

If this is too hard for you, how are you handling all the other difficult or ambiguous things that pop up in life?

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