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Comment by starkfist | Hacker News Reader

I left SF/SV because the dating scene was so bad and I felt like my startup enforced "vow of celibacy" had gone on long enough. There are not enough women, and the women who are there do not like you. If you are married or don't care about dating, it's a great place.

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I find this not to be true, and to state generalizations about SF/SV dating scene or lack thereof, is also far off from the truth.

Have you ever heard of Okcupid? I'm a tech guy, in the tech scene, working for a tech startup, and have found that if you want to find/date women, you need to be proactive about it (kind of like the old days). The city, and the surrounding bay area are full of available women, who do want to meet "you"... just need to look

If you're not social, then you wont meet anyone in this city, especially if you moved here for a job, and have little friends, or time to meet people, hence why dating sites like Okcupid are essential. If you grew up here, then it might be easier as you have a larger network of friends, acquaintances - that generally leads to more social events, etc..

Also - last time i checked, we have about an equal ratio of men to women (does not include sexual orientation)

Ah yes, OKCupid.

Here is my take on OKCupid. In SF, the real life singles scene is dominated by men. If you go to an event or a bar, there is a lopsided ratio of men to women. The women who are out, are typically insane. The cool women you want to meet are actually on OKCupid because they are tired of being surrounded by dirtbags and nerds (and insane women). So OkCupid works well for a man dating in SF, because that's where the normal, interesting, good-looking women are.

In NYC the scene is the opposite. The bars and events are overrun with attractive women. The weird trolls are the ones hanging out on OKC. Thus, if you move across country to NYC and update your OKC location, you'll start getting tons of messages from tattooed roller-derby girls who have pet snakes. The type you were tired of meeting at the bars in SF.

YMMV, I'll grant that maybe YC has inspired a generation of debonair hackers to move to SF and clean up with all the amazing local women.

hehe. Nice reply and do agree with: "So OkCupid works well for a man dating in SF, because that's where the normal, interesting, good-looking women are." _ I think it works well for women too, as men are constantly messaging ladies more than the opposite, of course, I am one of those men. :)

Why exactly are there so many attractive women? Is it something to do with NY being popular among women, or the culture of the east coast, or the presence of Ivies, or...?

edit: To clarify my question- why are there more women in NYC? Is there a clear cause?

I have never seen anybody describe the Ivy League as being known for having attractive women.

In one of John Taylor Gatto's books he brings up that Ivy League schools base part of their admissions process on the attractiveness of the applicant because they want to project a certain image. I'm not sure if this is true or not, and I can't find a citation, but it was in Weapons of Mass Instruction [1] I believe, but possibly Dumbing Us Down [2]. It was in his letter to his niece at the end of Weapons, if I recall correctly. I have also been told by a friend that is going to graduate school to an Ivy that it was part of the admissions process, though I'm not sure how she knew this (I believe told by a previous graduate).

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Mass-Instruction-Schoolteacher... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Sch...

The explanation is quite simple: male/female ratio in NYC is ~0.9 and in Bay Area it's about 1.03 http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/people/a_gender.html

'Why?' is almost certainly industries and culture attracting young migration differently by gender. New York has more media, entertainment, fashion, art. Also, NYC has more rigid and easy-to-read hierarchies of male success -- in finance, law, big corporations, media fame -- for women looking to land conventional 'big game'.

I live in NYC and can think of three reasons.

(1) There are a lot of colleges and non-engineering schools traditionally skew in favor of women

(2) NYC is very gay friendly

(3) The women here are exceptionally beautiful, setting the standards very high, messing up market efficiency

The reasons for migration to cities are always economic. There are more jobs "for women" in NYC.

I like Tyler Cowen's theory: "[the two variables are] income inequality, and the willingness of wealthier men to marry beautiful women from the lower income and social classes. Women then compete for lucrative marriage prizes." http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/11... NYC has both variables.

I bet it is a variety of factors, all adding up:

1. with all the skyscrapers, there's a very high-density need for secretaries (and their variants), which are roles that are disproportionately historically filled by women (for whatever reason -- please nobody launch into PC gender flame fest here)

2. lots of rich and/or high "status" ambitious men in suits -- draws many kinds of women like flies (not all, but many)

3. maybe also the high-density concentration of art, dance, advertising, book publishing industries -- all of which seem to disproportionately attract women rather than men

... plus many other factors. I just doubt it's one thing.

NYC specifically has a large number of attractive women for the same reason LA does: a lot of industries based in the city which employ and are built on attractive women. There are people working service jobs (waitress, bartender, etc.) who really want to break into those industries, too.

In LA, it's movies and music. In NYC, it's music, modeling, fashion.

That said, I'd prefer a "6" who is super-intelligent and interesting, to a "9" with whom I have nothing in common.

Read: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Artists spend their whole lives on the awareness of seeing. When you fall for someone you truly see them, much like an artist does. There is more beauty in that than a roomful of 10's at a wet T-shirt contest.

... until you have kids, at which point it stops being so great.

I have friends with kids there. If you have enough money, it's still great. It only sucks if you're financially struggling or sending your kids through the SF public school lottery.

Even if you're not rich, it might not be so bad. I grew up in a state known for it's amazing public school system, and it was still a bunch of bullshit. I would have rather grown up somewhere I could have ridden my bike every day of the year and gotten college credits from one of the best community college systems in the country.

I had kids in SF.

You are either going to spend a spectacular amount of money to rent a town house in an acceptable part of San Francisco (and put up with an insane public school system), or your kids are going to grow up in a California suburb.

That's a dilemma I'm happy to avoid.

The SF public school lottery is garbage, but many of the suburbs are great.

Would rather grow up (or raise kids) in San Mateo vs. Schaumburg. YMMV.

The uncanny resemblance that everything south of South San Francisco and east of Oakland has to Schaumburg definitely informs a lot of my opinions about the area. I lived in Santa Clara, in Soma, and in Noe Valley, for what it's worth.

And, candidly: if you're going to live in a Schaumburg, you should indeed pick Silicon Schaumburg, and not Frozen Schaumburg.

If you're going to live in a Schaumburg, you should indeed pick Silicon Schaumburg, and not Frozen Schaumburg.

That's what I'm sayin'. Citywise, I don't know enough about New Chicago to make an informed opinion. I vowed never to return in 1998, but I've heard it's become a great place.

Chicago, Portland, Austin, Seattle, Philly, DC, NYC, Boston, MSP, A2, Atlanta, Miami --- all better places to live than Silicon Schaumburg. Don't mistake this for boosterism. I love this city, but I'm motivated more by hatred of strip malls.

Disagree with Miami. Spent half year there in 2001. Miami is fucked up. Would live in regular Schaumburg before I lived in Miami again. Ok wait... maybe not. Miami is kind of cool because it is fucked up. But I was glad to get out of there. Also, I thought this was in the context of raising kids? Miami seems like the textbook example of the wrong place to raise kids...

I don't know if it's right to compare all of silicon valley suburbia to schaumburg, either. I think San Mateo is much different than Palo Alto, and both are much better than say... Fremont. The urban density in San Mateo is higher than Minneapolis, for example. I would love to talk about this all day, but need to cut myself off at this post...

I'm getting a kick out of the Schaumburg comments.

I lived there in the mid 90s, working in the next suburb north of there, Rolling Meadows. At least then it was a pretty soulless place and better known as Scumburg and Rolling Ghettos.

I live in a tiny village in the foothills of the Berkshires now. Last night was spent listing to the 150 year old town military band perform on the grounds of the historical society in perfect weather. My small kids ran around and played off by themselves and as I walked around I said hi to 10-20 people I know and who know me. Maybe I'm just getting old but that one simple night was worth more than anything living in SF could give me.

Hmmm. I grew up in SF. Parents didn't have money, went through the public school system. Public schools here aren't that bad, as long as you apply yourself and get into the magnet schools.

(Still live here too. The dilemma I have now is that I hate the commute to my south bay job, but I don't want to live the city. I still think most of the peninsula is pretty damn boring.)

I turned out fine. (I think...)

Since when is doing the whole startup thing about lifestyle and dating women???

If you get it this way, you have already lost in comparison to those dedicated _only_ to the success of their startup.

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