New York isn’t the city that never sleeps. It’s the city that sleeps with you . . . then hits on your best friend the next day. With only four single men for every five single ladies in the metro area (according to the US Census Bureau’s 2008 Community Survey), some poor girl is always losing her date in this game of musical pairs.
“The dating scene in New York is like Neverland — guys never have to grow up because the dating pool is so big for them,” says Christine G., a 30-year-old publicist who lives in Chelsea and didn’t want her full last name published. “If someone better-looking comes along, they’re moving on.”
In fact, dating in NYC can be so brutal that many women are calling the city quits, convinced their love lives can make it anywhere but here. Devastated by a recent breakup, Christine has set a ticking clock on her tryst with the Big Apple. She has two years to find a serious beau — or find a new hometown.
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When she first moved to the city in 1997, she relished what she calls the “Mr. Right Now” relationships of her 20s. But she’s ready to hop off New York’s man-go-round.
“I love it here, but now it’s time to think about my future,” she says.
“I’m giving myself a deadline to meet someone, or I’m leaving.”
She notes that her single female friends who leave New York quickly settle down, including her cousin Stephanie, who said buh-bye to the Big Apple three years ago after a string of demoralizing dates.
“I was fed up with New York,” says Stephanie, a 35-year-old financial adviser. “There is a certain mind-set men have of always wanting more, of never being satisfied with what they have.”
So she traded coasts for Los Angeles, fell in love and eloped within two months. She’s certain she never would have met a man like her husband, Fred, had she stayed in New York.
“He wanted to settle down and be in a loving relationship,” she coos of her 42-year-old husband, who works in corporate sales.
“He was honest and ruled by his heart, not money or status.”
Blogger Melissa Braverman is hoping she, too, may find better love elsewhere. She’s off on a whirlwind eight-week dating quest to eight US cities. “I need a break from the New York dating scene,” Braverman, 36, explains wearily.
“And I’m curious about how dating here differs from dating in other parts of the country.”
The Upper East Sider is crisscrossing the country with at least three suitors per city, detailing her dating blitz on her blog SingleGalNYC.com. Braverman says New York men see commitment as something to be resisted, while men from Cleveland, her first dating depot, put a premium on getting serious.
“With a 55-to-45 girl-guy ratio, [it’s] a place where people are friendly and willing to connect,” she says in a dispatch from the road.
Still, there are no guarantees that Midwest men are classier than those with a 212 area code. One Ohio guy explained his “Ten Tuesday” rule to her this way: “The date doesn’t have to be a 10 unless I’m going out with her on a Friday.”
We’ll be sure to pencil you in.
So, do all these flighty Gotham girls have a point? Is New York City truly the toughest town for single women looking to settle down?
“There are a lot more single, young, adult unmarried women than there are men in New York,” says Kathleen Gerson, author of “The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation Is Reshaping Family, Work and Gender in America” and a sociology professor at NYU.
“These things always matter.”
Indeed, census figures indicate there were 756,000 more single women than single men in the New York-New Jersey metro area in 2008, some of the worst odds in the country.
But Gerson says it’s not just the numbers that don’t add up, it’s women’s perceptions of the men they meet in NYC.
“Women come here with very high expectations, and sometimes it’s hard to meet those expectations,” she explains, suggesting that women’s achievements are a double-edged sword.
“Women increasingly want to find that perfect partner for that fulfilling, lasting collaborative relationship,” she says. “Given the very admirable expectations that young women in this city have for the right kind of relationship, it’s not surprising that it will take them longer to find it.”
Or that it may take them farther to find it. “The place we choose to live is the single most important decision we make,” says Richard Florida, author of “Who’s Your City?” and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto.
“It has a profound impact on the jobs we have access to, our career path, the people we date, as well as our overall happiness.”
He says, “The odds are not great” for single women searching for a mate in New York. For a better bet, he suggests they look for love in Western cities like Los Angeles, Denver and Seattle.
Former New Yorker Nicole Christie did just that. A year ago this week she traded her Wall Street apartment for a Mini Cooper and a spacious townhouse in Seattle.
“I was ready to be in a relationship and didn’t feel like New York was going to afford me that opportunity,” says the 37-year-old founder of marketing firm NICO Inc.
“Seattle is more of a ‘relationship city’ — people are more laid-back and open to commitment, whether that’s marriage or simply a satisfying long-term relationship.”
Christie says that while New York provided her an amazing platform on which to build her business, the dating scene was “brutal.” She says she’s been asked out by twice as many men since her change in longitude. “Statistically, there are supposedly more single men than single women in Seattle,” she says.
“I’m determined to find them — I think they’re all hiding in the annals of Microsoft.”
Nabeela Haque, a 36-year-old personal trainer who lives in Astoria, is also tempted to ditch the dating scene in New York.
“I don’t know if they become crappy when they meet me or they were crappy before, but there is definitely crappiness,” she says of the city’s single men.
Haque questions her motives for remaining in a city that’s given her little but job and housing strife. “Then on top of that I have weirdos to date,” she bemoans. “Why am I really here if that’s what I have to put up with?”
Still, she’s not completely convinced a change in geography will change her romantic reality. “If I move to another city,” she jokes, “I’ll just be the weird old single lady who used to live in New York.”
But blogger Braverman hasn’t given up hope on love entirely. “Whether you’re in New York or Podunk, Iowa,” she insists, “amazing things can and do happen when you put yourself out there.”
Somewhere over the rainbow — or maybe just outside the boroughs — dreams do come true.