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Dating - the #1 app for cities.


And SF is the worst large city for dating in the world.


I'd say LA is worse, but not by much. Every date is a 75 minutes away and then 75 minutes back. SF is only 72 minutes ;)


As someone who grew up in SF and went to school in LA, all this talk of where it is hard to date seems silly. People always like to complain about things like that but the truth is dating can be hard for some people anywhere.


No, there are absolutely strong forces which bring different kinds of people to one city over another.


Sure, every place is different. But what is your evidence that dating is harder in one city vs another?


LA has cool, attractive people. Which, especially for a straight guy, SF really does not.

Plus if you are in Santa Monica or Venice the traffic to get to other cool places is not that bad.


The trick to LA is that it is huge, and you will tend to gravitate to certain parts. Different parts have different attractions. When I met my wife we both lived near by Fairfax & 3rd, which meant I could walk to her apartment. What didn't occur to me at the time was that we lived close to each other because we liked a lot of the same things and had similar life priorities. In retrospect location was a sorting mechanism that worked great for us.


If you are a guy. It isn’t bad for girls.


Especially if you're a minority


(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24766464.)


But, as an outsider: is it the case for Bay Area?

I mean, tech companies have way more males than females, I would expect that areas full of tech employees like the Bay Area would not be ideal for males trying to find partners due to the bigger competition.

Is that the case? How is the male/female ratio in those areas?


If you’re a straight single male in the Bay Area your best dating option is to say fuck it and download Grindr or move to New York City.


Did both, can confirm.


Dating is horrible in the Bay Area unless you grew up in the Bay or don’t work in tech.

If you’re an outsider you’re considered a gentrifying techie so you already eliminated mostly anyone who is from the Bay. So now you have to date other outsiders and guess what, most of them work in tech. Most people who work in tech are male.


Psh I don't think that's true. I think you will have trouble if you basically match every single other tech person in every attribute - ie. if you lean really hard into the stereotypes.


It's not as true as it's talked up to be, but there is definitely an "Eww, techies" sentiment found among a non-trivial chunk of those that identify as "natives". You run into it a few times and you learn to spot some of the early warning signs.


It depends how good looking the techie is


Might be true for dating in the short term but not the long term. Once you start meeting family and lifelong friends there’s a good chance peer pressure causes the relationship to splinter.

There’s a “you’ll never be one of us” sentiment.


It happened to me exactly once (and the sample size is big enough) that a date was turned off by me being in tech. It happens. And it happens much more frequently when being in tech is part of your identity, like being actively in politics, or saving the oceans. A strong proposal is likely to cause a strong reaction, sometimes negative.

But while I understand why being "political" may be part of someone's identity, I am more skeptical it is needed for a techie to have "tech" as part of their identity.


I find that building solidarity around the distortionary/gentrifying effects of the tech boom, to at least show that you are cognizant of the problems people are facing goes a long, long way.


I stopped trying that after it was turned into a series of direct and personal accusations of how I am the evil techie gentrifier. My experience has been the opposite of yours - showing awareness comes with the expectation that you accept blame.

Your mileage may vary.


Tech worker majority in SVBA have a choice to live 2 hours outside of the metro.

Everyone else typically does not.

The expectation is apt.


Personally, I'm not big on accepting personal blame for fifty years of bad urban planning decisions made by other people, almost entirely before I could vote. But I understand that that's not a helpful, satisfactory, or emotionally resonant response to someone looking for an enemy to accuse of wrecking everything they hold dear. Certainly not when they have someone who represents all those evils right before them.

I've learned to cut such people off immediately. Nothing good can come of attempting to offer sympathy, solidarity, or compassion to someone who views you as a mustache-twirling cartoon villain.


If I ever move to SF, I will print these words you wrote on a business card and hand to people when appropriate.




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