
Ask HN: Poor dating options for heterosexual men in the Bay area? - MlEngineer
I am a male engineer who spent most of his early twenties working for startups in the Bay area. It&#x27;s been a terrific experience in general, except for one issue: dating.<p>South Bay gender ratio is <i>heavily</i> skewed towards men. It was virtually impossible to meet single young women anywhere near Mountain View. After several fruitless months I started looking all the way up in San Francisco, and when I finally scored a first date there, the lady told me she&#x27;s been out with five different men over the past 10 days, two of whom were millionaire startup entrepreneurs.<p>As the years went by, the dating scene seemed to only get worse, until it ended up being a major factor in my decision to leave the area. I relocated to the East Coast, which was a step down from the technological epicenter of Silicon Valley, but a <i>huge</i> step up dating-wise. I got a lot of dates with attractive young women who seemed genuinely happy to date me.<p>Fast-forward five years. An old co-worker recently reached out about a senior engineering role at a new startup he co-founded. I flew in to meet the rest of the team and they&#x27;re all incredibly talented. The issued a formal offer and it looks like an amazing opportunity. However, I am very concerned about getting back to the dating scene there. It seemed to have only gotten worse, with San Francisco undergoing a huge influx of mostly male techies, and equally large outflow of everyone else.<p>What are your thoughts about this situation?  Are you dealing with a similar lack of options?  If so, any insights or advice?
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DrScump
Hence the moniker " _Man_ Jose".

For historical perspective looking back to the 1970s, check out the excellent
film "Time After Time" (Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenbergen), where Mary's
character decries the minimal SF dating pool for straight _women_ in that era,
given the high percentage of gay males in SF.

~~~
DoreenMichele
So, the excess of single men may not be that much excess competition if a
notable percentage of them are dating other men, not women.

~~~
MlEngineer
Of course, but this is not the 1970s, and young males aren't moving to SF
specifically to practice an openly gay lifestyle in an otherwise intolerant
nation. It's unlikely that the hordes of male engineers, relocating to South
Bay / SF for professional reasons, are substantially more likely to be gay
than the women.

------
samueltew
I'm dealing with a similar lack of options. I live in SF and am planning on
moving to NYC sometime soon.

I don't think my friend ever even had a date in the 7 years he lived in SF. He
told me he pretty much had given up. He moves to NYC, in two weeks, before his
apartment even has furniture, he gets a girlfriend. If a girl finds out you
are single there, she will push you to go on dates with her single
girlfriends.

At many bars here, there may be 5 guys to every girl, and only 3 or 4 girls
might be single. Of course they get a constant stream of guys hitting on them
so if you are an average guy, you will be shut down immediately.

~~~
MlEngineer
> At many bars here, there may be 5 guys to every girl, and only 3 or 4 girls
> might be single. Of course they get a constant stream of guys hitting on
> them so if you are an average guy, you will be shut down immediately.

Haha, I'll take "SFBA experiences I definitely don't miss" for $800, Alex!

Your friend's experience is quite similar to my own. Dating life completely
turned around as soon as I moved east.

This is such a striking and serious issue, I'm surprised there's not a whole
lot more discussion of it. Are all these engineers happy to just move to SFBA,
and then not have a single date for 7 years like your friend?

~~~
J-dawg
> I'm surprised there's not a whole lot more discussion of it.

As someone from outside the US who views "The Valley" as some kind of
incredible utopia (ok, apart from the housing costs), I'm also very surprised
by this. I imagine it would make a lot of single men think twice about moving
there, if it was more widely discussed.

------
jonathanyc
During the Gold Rush there was also a heavily skewed gender ratio in the Bay
Area—funny how parts of history can seem to echo :)

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ARCarr
I've read all your comments on here OP, and it seems like you know what the
correct answer is: stay on the East Coast. Even if you do move back to the
Bay, then you're going to feel discouraged in your dating efforts and that
will probably be reflective in how your dates go.

~~~
MlEngineer
I think I was hoping for an answer like "hey OP, there's this one effective
way to date in the Bay you haven't tried..."

That hasn't happened. All data and most respondents with any actual experience
in the Bay seem to confirm the conclusions from my own experience, that yes
there's a big gender imbalance in the Bay, and yes it's a huge problem and the
dating scene for heterosexual men is therefore far inferior to say most cities
on the East Coast.

I may still decide to move back, seeing how important my career is and that
the offer really is very attractive and may well be further sweetened should I
initially refuse.

In that case it will just be a straight-up sacrifice of my romantic life for
my career.

------
olliej
If you’re looking at MV,MP, etc you’re pretty much requiring married people -
it generally takes two highly paid people working full time to afford a house
down there, and those cities are vehemently opposed to adding any housing.
Similar for Cupertino - especially given the school district.

Seriously you just have to work on it - dating post college is much more work
(for all genders and orientations) - like multiple dates a week for months to
find someone you click with. That’s just part of life. I think (from over
hearing conversations) many people do have difficulty talking about non-work
things.

Shrug

~~~
MlEngineer
> Seriously you just have to work on it - dating post college is much more
> work (for all genders and orientations) - like multiple dates a week for
> months to find someone you click with.

I agree with this (and the rest of what you said - MTV isn't feasible for
young starving artists or baristas) but this is so much harder when _you can
barely get any dates_.

That's actually my point: the real problem in SFBA isn't having a diverse
romantic life (though that's also virtually impossible): it's finding a pool
of candidates large enough to have a real shot at finding a compatible spouse,
if you're a man.

Precisely because it can take dozens of dates to find one good spouse, one
must realize that engineers who can't find dates for _years_ (as someone
commented below from his own experience) will have virtually no chance of
finding a compatible partner.

And even if you are lucky enough to score several dates and find a woman who
is compatible, you'll often quickly discover that she has her own wait-list of
qualified candidates, and you are unfortunately not at its top.

------
DamnYuppie
You are fishing in the wrong pond.

Having spent the last 4 months in the Bay area I can say with confidence that
the pool of women is NOT as well rounded and numerous as the east coast. If
you want a vibrant personal life I recommend not coming to San Fran.

------
ryanmccullagh
If being a millionaire startup entrepreneur is something the women you're
seeing care about, then you don't date these women. Also, five different men
over the course of 10 days is a lot of dating. Are you sure they don't
actually work for the dating site you're on (undercover)? What app did you
use? Don't ever let anyone compare you to another person.

~~~
MlEngineer
> If being a millionaire startup entrepreneur is something the women you're
> seeing care about, then you don't date these women.

Let's be realistic here. Say you dated two women over the past couple of days.
Both were equally attractive, smart, fun, and pleasant. However, one of them
is a millionaire serial founder. The other is just a good engineer. You can
only have one girlfriend. Which one do you choose?

I don't consider myself materialistic, but I can tell you I'd choose the
entrepreneur. This level of success makes her more attractive. And women are
attracted to success even more than men.

> Also, five different men over the course of 10 days is a lot of dating.

She was an extreme example that stunned me at the time, but she wasn't
unusual. Women on SF OkCupid (the app I used) would get bombarded by thousands
of messages. They could easily date a different guy every day of the week if
they wanted to.

> Don't ever let anyone compare you to another person.

I do not, but there's no point sticking our head in the sand either. If I'm
competing with 5 other men for every single woman in SF, and 2 of these men
will be extremely successful entrepreneurs, then I'm going to have a bad time
dating.

Which I absolutely did. Getting any dates at all on OkCupid was pretty much
impossible south of SF. In SF itself, it was "merely" incredibly hard, and
when I met the lady, I would often find out she had an astounding array of
attractive options. This often led to them not ending up in any sort of
serious relationship with me, and in some cases to unstable relationship,
possibly because the lady was well aware of the stupefying amount of eager
alternatives waiting for her out there the instant she decides to walk out
over the most trivial of inconveniences.

I can speak about this with some confidence because as soon as I moved to the
East Coast my dating life became almost the opposite of the above, especially
when it comes to starting and maintaining relationships.

~~~
riku_iki
> Both were equally attractive, smart, fun, and pleasant.

They are not. Being "millionaire serial founder" will induce specific
personality traits, and now it is up to you which type of women you prefer.

~~~
MlEngineer
That's just an example, though. Personally, I'm not looking for a woman who is
a millionaire serial founder. But men who are extremely successful do have a
huge advantage when it comes to dating, and especially finding a serious long-
term partner.

There's no point pretending otherwise.

------
bjourne
So don't move? It seems you have correctly calculated that the odds of you
meeting women is much higher in area A than B, so the correct course of action
is staying in area B. I don't understand what kind of help you want.

~~~
MlEngineer
Maybe I was wrong? Maybe there is a way to date in the Bay that will yield
better results?

I'll be giving up an extremely attractive opportunity should I choose to stay
on the east coast, I want to ensure I didn't miss any plausible way of making
this work.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_Maybe I was wrong?_

I had the opposite experience of yours. Moving from one place to another
resulted in me going from Ms. Popularity to extreme loneliness. But I was very
clear that there were multiple factors impacting my social life, including the
fact that I got a full time job and no longer had as much free time for my
social life.

I will suggest that you sit down and try to do a more thorough analysis and
list as many differences as possible between your life in the SFBA and your
life on the East Coast and try to figure out how each of those factors may
have impacted your dating life. See if you can draw any inferences that may be
useful in trying to successfully date while living in the SFBA. The obvious
explanation isn't always the correct explanation and there are usually
multiple factors in any given outcome. It usually isn't due entirely to a
single factor.

If you don't want to consider the possibility that there are more factors than
just the male to female ratio in these two locations, you don't have to. But
please kindly refrain from shooting me down this time should you not like this
suggestion either. You seem incredibly committed to your conclusion that it
cannot be fixed. If you really believe that and are unwilling to consider any
of the excellent suggestions here for another way to look at the problem
space, then you are just wasting everyone's time.

~~~
MlEngineer
I disagree but still appreciate the comment.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Thank you for deleting your long commentary.

------
gamechangr
Get married.

It sounds like you have had at least a decade of dating. What are you waiting
for?

~~~
MlEngineer
That's actually a big concern: how do I get a good candidate for marriage,
when the dating pool is tiny and there's so much strong competition?

~~~
sevilo
You come across as someone who is too calculating of dating and marriage,
treating it like a engineering or mathematical problem. Sure, selecting the
right partner to spend the rest of your life is very important and anyone
should put some thought into it, but imo should not be treated as a game of
calculation and trade, to me that really loses the sense of what makes us
human. The part where you said have moved to east coast for a few years where
the dating pool is not a problem, and yet you haven't settled on a long term
partner makes me think the majority of the problem isn't with the dating pool
itself (not that there's anything wrong with this lifestyle if that's what you
like).

~~~
MlEngineer
The average age of first marriage for males in the US is 29, so I'm well
within acceptable social bounds.

I'm not eager to get married next month, nor do I feign to be. I'm worried
about making a decision to relocate to the Bay for several years and
eventually running against this problem when I do want to get married.

