[throwaway_woxx7]

I've lived in Austin for about 5 years. Grad school, not work. My programmer friends seem to have no problem getting jobs, and I have no shortage of male friends, but the gender ratio of singles is pretty heavily skewed towards men for introverted nerds. I'm a single male who doesn't have a lot of free time, so I gave up on dating in Austin. The city doesn't seem to attract many people I'd like to date. Particularly compared against where I lived previously. Many of the people under 35 in Austin seem to have been attracted to the city for the music festivals and relative lack of cold weather. I'm an introvert who finds the summer heat here worse than the cold on the east coast. As I said, Austinites are typically not my kind of people.

Something to keep in mind if you believe you might be similar to me. Austin is probably not worse than SF, but I don't intend to live there after I graduate either.

[fapjacks]

Well, there is a big difference between "Austinites" and people that moved to Austin from somewhere else and now make up 4/5ths of the population. I made up that number, but it's not a bad guess. Austin is an east coast city in Texas. Everybody there is from LA or the east coast and brought their road rage and terrible attitudes to Austin. It seems all the actual Austinites are leaving the city for nearby small towns like Dripping Springs, Elgin, Fredricksburg, San Marcos, New Braunsfels, etc. People actually from Austin seem to be way cooler than the people that moved to Austin from somewhere else. No offense to the transplants -- I used to be one and certainly Austinites are way cooler than I am. But I'm guessing they've also looked around and come to the same conclusion like the person here. Austin was probably as cool as they say in the 80s and 90s. Not so much these days.

[Recoveringhobo]

> Well, there is a big difference between "Austinites" and people that moved to Austin from somewhere else and now make up 4/5ths of the population. I made up that number, but it's not a bad guess. Austin is an east coast city in Texas.

You could say the same thing about SF, Oakland, Portland, LA, Seattle, Boston, New York, etc etc. Name a city with a booming economy in the U.S. that isn't mostly transplants.

> Everybody there is from LA or the east coast and brought their road rage and terrible attitudes to Austin. It seems all the actual Austinites are leaving the city for nearby small towns like Dripping Springs, Elgin, Fredricksburg, San Marcos, New Braunsfels, etc.

Once again, you could say the same thing about any of the popular cities for young people to move to. I currently live in Seattle and hear people saying the exact same thing all the time. Californians pricing Seattlites out and bringing road rage yada yada. I'm originally from the East Bay and have experienced the exact same gentrification process in my own home town.

> People actually from Austin seem to be way cooler than the people that moved to Austin from somewhere else. No offense to the transplants -- I used to be one and certainly Austinites are way cooler than I am. But I'm guessing they've also looked around and come to the same conclusion like the person here. Austin was probably as cool as they say in the 80s and 90s. Not so much these days.

I've heard this exact same sentiment online about all the hip cities in the U.S.

[fapjacks]

Maybe, but I've lived in those places you mentioned (except the east coast cities) and the problem is stifling in Austin. I'm originally from a small, liberal college town in a conservative plains state which in the 80s might have been a great twin city for Austin, if somewhat smaller. So I have some insight into what it "should" be like when people describe how cool Austin is, or how cool people have heard Austin is (because a lot of Austin's reputation is propagated by total strangers). And Austin simply isn't like that, anymore. All of the reasons that people love Austin are actually nowadays being manufactured by outsiders. The plastic, false reality of those qualities is palpable and easy to spot when you're there. There are a few secrets and a few items of local flavor which were still sort of genuinely "Austin" but even when I lived there more than five years ago, they were being inundated by outsiders as "best kept secrets" and diluted.

Having lived in most of the places you mention above, I can say definitively that Austin is experiencing this problem the worst among the "boom cities" by orders of magnitude. I'm guessing it's because of the proportion of recent transplants to "original Austinites". Austin was a small city in Texas in the 80s! ZERO of your boom cities were anything like that so recently. And it's worst among your examples not only because there are actually so few people proportionally who lived in Austin since it was actually cool, but compounded by the fact that a lot of those Austinites are leaving Austin for the surrounding countryside (or wherever).

[pm90]

I haven't found that experience at all. In fact one of the reasons I refuse to move to Man Jose or SF is because I've heard of the famously skewed sex ratio. There is a lot more diversity in Austin, and as a single guy in his late 20's I've had a very healthy dating experience.

[throwaway_woxx7]

I don't doubt SF, etc., is worse. My experience suggests Austin is a step down from where I lived previously.

Perhaps you're more attractive or patient than I am. I also just realized that I forgot to mention that I'm a teetotaler, which seem to be a major turnoff to people here.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you meet single women here?

[justherefortart]

SF is a sausage fest without a doubt. Fortunately, there's a lot of sausage on sausage action (if that's your thing :-)

I lived in the bay area for ~4 years, lots of dudes, immigrants, and really wealthy people (in addition to a lot of the working poor). Interesting place just not my cup of tea.

Did make Buena Vista inspired Irish Coffees last night though.

[starwind0]

I've had no shortage of suiters. Granted I say that as a single dude, but I know a few who would date me. MANY more times that of Denver. Just because I know more people because everyone is so friendly. I mean there is a whole university to offset from the software engineers.

[throwaway_woxx7]

Maybe age is part of the problem for me. I'm about 10 years older than the undergrads, so they're not really in my dating pool. Most of the dates I've gone on were with fellow graduate students, but I didn't go on many dates before stopping.

[tropo]

The ancient philosopher Plato tells us that the ideal marriage ages are 16 for women and 30 for men. One might suspect that he was 30 at the time, but Plato is quite respected. Consider taking his advice. Biologically it makes sense, leading to large families that can be financially supported.

[reducesuffering]

Consider taking his advice and marrying 16 year olds?

[mrkstu]

I think he's just implying that there isn't any reason to remove the undergrads from the dating pool.

[antisthenes]

If anything, the undergrads should be your only dating pool. Older women come with too many entitlements and strings attached and you're essentially on the clock to start a family with them.