[exBarrelSpoiler]

It's quite fitting that the dating scene in S.F. is often similar to tech interviewing. Play the number games, don't get attached, and move on. Nothing personal, it's just metrics. Is this what cutthroat economic competition does to people?

[mysterypie]

The dating scene is messed up for men in the Bay Area because eligible men vastly outnumber eligible women. It's as simple as that. All the unnatural relationship dynamics flows from this fact. More men study computer science, math, physics, and engineering than women do. Silicon Valley is a magnet for people in those fields. Silicon Valley ends up with way more single men in the 20-40 age bracket than single women.

If you a straight single male, you have an important decision. If you value the immense professional opportunies of the Bay Area more than finding a partner, then do move there. If you think that finding a partner is also very important, then consider finding your job someplace with better ratios. If the Bay Area 20-40 dating pool is something like 3 male to 1 female, that means 2/3 of single men will be without partners.

[pmiller2]

It's actually not quite that bad, but there are some areas where men outnumber women by over 40% [0]. The ratio is a little better in Silicon Valley, at about 1.14:1 [1]. The SF/Oakland/Hayward metro area fares a little better at 0.93:1 overall [2], but that doesn't take into account how difficult is is to access SF from the East Bay and vice versa. It doesn't take much of a skew to really mess up the ratios.

[0]: http://visualizing.nyc/bay-area-zip-codes-singles-map/

[1]: http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/10/02/study-says-silicon-va...

[2]: Ibid.

[sangnoir]

When it comes to dating, simple gender ratios might not paint the complete picture because it's not just any man:any woman. Frequently, the prospective partner has to have a similar socioeconomic background: I'm not in the Valley so I don't know if that ratio is in the ball park of 1.14:1 for the "goes to Silicon Valley" male archetype