

The Dating Ring Is Raising Money To Fly Women From NYC To SF - jacoblyles
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/04/the-dating-ring-is-raising-money-to-fly-women-from-nyc-to-sf-because-dating/

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fossuser
I thought it would be funny to make a joke site with this idea (even grabbed
sadsingles.com a few days ago for it) - it's interesting someone is actually
trying it.

The dating situation is so bad for single men in their early to mid twenties
on the west coast that I'm starting to think it's worth bailing on the area
entirely and moving to NYC just for that purpose. (Palo Alto has got to be
magnitudes worse than SF which is still pretty bad).

At first it looked like the situation in NYC was even worse for women with the
150k vs. 50k difference, but the population of NYC is 8.2million where SF is
only 805k. Still dramatic, but not nearly as bad.

~~~
nostrademons
I think the numbers are a red herring. Finding a _date_ is a numbers game.
However, if you've spent any time in a committed relationship, you'll know
that pretty much the only things that matter are how she feels about herself
and how she feels about you (and the converses for you, which are heavily
influenced by those). All the stuff about hotness, income, intelligence,
background, careers, etc. fades into the background, and you figure out how to
make it work.

I suspect the reason that dating sucks in the Bay Area is because the Bay Area
attracts guys (and women, but to a lesser extent) who are overly concerned
with how they're perceived by others. After all, everybody is chasing the
latest hot startup that will make them wealthy and famous. That same
insecurity - and the same insecurity that would make you bail on an area just
because there are no girls - is massively unattractive to women.

I spent a year and a half dating around, including some very hot women. After
realizing that none of that mattered and the only thing important was how I
felt when I was with her, it took me all of 3 weeks to find a partner.

~~~
fossuser
If dates are generally a prerequisite to relationships than the numbers issue
tends to have a lot of influence (age does too).

My impression from living here isn't that it's people worried about their
status, I think it's just that there aren't enough people - do you live in the
bay area?

~~~
nostrademons
I do live in the Bay Area.

And my point is that there are enough people around that getting dates should
not be a significant problem. I went out with about 25-30 people before
finding my girlfriend; to get to that involved about 200 OKCupid messages.
There were about 5 dates in the 3 weeks before and 3 weeks after I first met
her.

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rubiquity
This article makes it obvious how far behind technology NYC is compared to SF.
Men in SF don't want women from NYC flown to see them. Men in SF want women
delievered by Quadricopter drones.

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daniel-cussen
I believe this is not the first time this happened in San Francisco.

During the Gold Rush, the gender ratio was about 50 men per woman. It got
better with the years, but party organisers kept doing their damnedest to get
women to go to their balls, inviting (and arranging for travel for) women from
as far as Missouri, over the Pony Express.

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themoonbus
Pardon the language, but this reminds me of the Fuck Truck (at least in
decades past, when the MIT male to female ratio was way more out of whack):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellesley_College_Senate_bus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellesley_College_Senate_bus)

~~~
rughgaegteaelt
Sure, but given these people could not get a date in NY, I would suggest it is
more like the Fright Flight, or the Plain-Jane Plane.

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dictum
And in a third, different place on Earth a man is choosing between keeping his
sanity or caving in and typing "valleywag.gawker.com" in his browser's address
bar.

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dnautics
"Also, not great, as pointed out by another TechCrunch writer: The implicit
assumption that all dating is between women and men."

Another possibility is that there's no first-order[0] geographical arbitrage
opportunity presented by gender imbalances when men seek men and women seek
women.

[0] there may be "second-order" abritrage opportunity, in terms of sub-types
of men or women.

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xivzgrev
Humor is all this is.

Open question: where do men here in SF try to meet women?

As a man, I have yet to see such a lack of single women in the city that would
necessitate a project like this, even when I was dating around for 9 months.

Me thinks either standards are too high or don't go far enough out of your
comfort zone. I could imagine being wrapped up in a startup, eat, breathing,
sleeping it. And yes, not too many single women in the startup scene.

But startup != San Francisco, though it may seem that way from the news media.

~~~
sneak
As a guy with wickedly amazing success on OKCupid and Craigslist in New York
and elsewhere, in SF alone for a month, I can confirm that the usual methods
that smart, hardworking, tech-savvy dudes use for finding strangers to date
are completely oversaturated in SF.

Offline is the way, obviously, but ain't nobody got time for that.

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alangstaff
They need to make this frictionless...much like Uber. Make an app where I push
a button and a 'dateable' girl gets delivered as soon as possible to a bar of
my choice for an instant date. She doesn't have to be from nyc.

~~~
ballard
LOL. :)

The meta: know what you really want. Sex, companionship or kids: select up to
two adjacent goals. Pick all 3 if you have a second condo and a burner phone.

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mcherm
...and why didn't they raise the money to fly a planeload of eligible MEN to
NYC?

~~~
dfgeheht
...because like Horoscopes, Magazines telling us what we should eat/wear/say,
and the rest, Men don't generally fall for this kind of thing.

~~~
untog
Yet they're still funding this campaign to have women sent to them. Which is
one of the saddest things I've typed in recent memory.

(and if you really think that "men" don't fall for being told what to
eat/wear/say you're horribly, sadly mistaken)

~~~
newman314
Years ago, Dilbert had a hilarious series of strips about mail order brides.
But I agree that it is sad.

I'll just leave this here.

[http://search.dilbert.com/search?p=Q&lbc=dilbert&uid=7339291...](http://search.dilbert.com/search?p=Q&lbc=dilbert&uid=733929174&ts=custom&w=Mail%20Order%20Bride&af=&method=and&view=list&filter=type%3acomic&isort=date+rev)

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jsumrall
My issues with this: 1\. Whats the goal from the date? Nobody is going to
commit to a long term relationship, and I doubt you will convince a guy to
leave his job in SF to move to NY from this date.

2\. Waste of resources/emissions. Sure, the effect of this is negligible since
the planes will be flying anyways, but in principal this just seems like a
huge waste of resources.

3\. Given 1, it seems that this "date" is really just going to be mostly one-
time affairs. Which is cool. But why not just find a date locally or hire an
escort.

~~~
rughgaegteaelt
Not sure I agree about point three - why do you think they will get more
success in SF than in NY? If they cannot get a "date" in NY, I am not sure
they would get one in SF. Unless the organisers provide everyone with masks,
cover of darkness and free booze!

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jenncom
Dating Ring couldn't wait until a single date's worth of Groupon signups were
had before moving on to the next pivot? [http://www.groupon.com/deals/the-
dating-ring-1](http://www.groupon.com/deals/the-dating-ring-1)

------
wsidell
The ratio in New York City is hardly a problem since the population is so big
(8 million). It is like 53% women and 47% men.

I am a man and went to a college that was 55% men and 45% women. I never felt
like there was a lack of women.

~~~
T-hawk
The raw numbers don't paint an accurate picture of dating inequality. The
pairwise nature means you need to subtract out those already paired with a
dedicated partner. That will vary for different groups and can cause extreme
imbalances in the dating population that you might not expect.

In your college of young adults, suppose 30% of the population is already
paired, which is 15% of each gender. That leaves 40% available men to 30%
available women, a 1.3:1 ratio, not too bad.

In New York City's adult population of all ages, suppose 86% of the population
is already paired, 43% of each gender. That leaves 10% available women chasing
4% available men, a 2.5:1 ratio, quite lopsided.

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31reasons
VCs should be concerned. They are trying to fly in distractions. What if your
founder starts wasting time dating women? Shouldn't they be focused on their
startups? Startups are on a peninsula for a reason :)

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error54
Link to the crowdtilt: [https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/working-on-
it/descriptio...](https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/working-on-
it/description)

------
hellbanTHIS
Most expensive city in America, the most downright tyrannical laws in the
country, might come crashing down on your head at any moment... oh, and NO
WOMEN.

I thought you guys were supposed to be smart.

------
bryze
I wonder what proportion would be willing to relocate either direction, or is
that not the idea? Long distance never worked out for me.

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dfgeheht
Wait - so they can't get a date in NY, and they think the standards are lower
in SF, so they might get a date?

~~~
capkutay
Majority opinion is that NY nightlife/dating life has higher ratio of girls to
guys while SF has way more guys. So it doesn't mean standards are supposed to
be lower, rather the ratio should even out between the 2 cities.

~~~
ballard
It's the "elsewhere is valuable" "logic."

Protip for men: Davis, CA not during summer has the highest concentration of
unmarried, college educated, single women of any college town in the US,
outside the Boston metro. Thursday night is salsa night at The Grad. Get your
silly colored sunglasses and go.

The other trick is to have women fly out to meet you, oh wait, that one has an
API now. :) Seriously, distance is another "barrier" so it is good for the
stationary party (not that kind, the human kind).

~~~
rubiquity
> The other trick is to have women fly out to meet you, oh wait, that one has
> an API now.

curl -X POST
[https://thedatingring.com/api/v1/women](https://thedatingring.com/api/v1/women)
-d '{"hair": "brown", "interests": ["me, duh", "froyo", "kale"]}'

=> {"flightNumber": 1525, "airline": "United", "departureTime": 201403051250,
"arrivalTime": 201403051545}

~~~
newman314
Bad cert.

~~~
ballard
Did she lie about that too or was she using GnuTLS?

------
ballard
"It's like Great Expectations but with airplanes."

Any service that takes money from people by preying upon their dreams is
inherently evil. This doesn't solve dating because it's unsolvable on purpose.
Unplanned spontaneous clicking probably won't happen when it's the advertised
goal. Joining interest groups on meetup would be infinitely better.

~~~
sp332
Spontaneous clicking is more likely to happen if you meet a lot more people!

~~~
ballard
Much less likely if that's the advertised goal. It's better to go about group
activities people enjoy, and not let dating become their all-consuming goal.

