There are more gay men than lesbian women, which is normally a small effect, but in a city that seems to absorb the LGBT population from the rest of the country, this might be more dramatic (especially since gay men are more likely to get college degrees than straight men, so the college educated population would be impacted even more).
I just looked the numbers up before I read this comment thread, out of curiosity. More women than men identify as LGBT nowadays, but my anecdotal experience is that the increase is mostly bisexual women who primarily date men.
Also, I suspect more gay men move to large cities, while lesbians are more likelly than gay men to live in small towns, be in the military or have jobs like forest ranger or organic farmer. I personally know more out lesbians than gay men who live in small towns.
Just at a guess, if 5% of men nationally are gay, it's probably at least 10% in gay meccas like NYC, SF, and Atlanta; while women who prefer to date women are probably still more like 5%.
I appreciate these dives—I think I'm personally on the ass end of the bell curve for too many axes to self-apply it. I feel a little unlucky right now that for friends & family reasons I'm moving to Seattle instead of NYC: I am given to understand the gender ratio is terrible for men who date women, and while I've got "very unusually hot & healthy older man" going for me, I don't think that the app filters are going to go well for me given the chronological number. Until there's a "Late Bloomer" box to check, it's on-location charisma for me 🤷♂️
Amazing, love everything about this post, a sumptuously analytic tour de force. :-)
One thing it may be worth doing is breaking out the 18-24 age group rather than having the 20-29 bucket - "singleness" differs very significantly in the rest of the US by these age groups, from ~82% for 18-24yo to ~50% for 25-29yo women:
I don't know if singleness differs by as much in Manhattan, but given the difficulty of dating and locking anyone down, it's probably a good bet singleness is *higher* in both those age groups.
I'm trying to find the source for this graph, I think it was ACS data, but not sure, I just had it saved in my "interesting graphs and factoids" folder - will update this comment if I find it.
Oh interesting, thanks! The issue is that I don’t have 18-24 broken out from the pew research data so I can’t apply it to the ACS data separately. But yes, I think I’m likely undercounting singleness for that age set, the academic study graphs show that - crazy intense from 18-24, gender gap still had but less so 25-29, and a bit more chill thereafter.
Another great piece Lana! So, if I’m interpreting this right, you’re saying the dominant narrative that it’s so much better to be a guy than a woman in NYC is complete BS? When you adjust for being single, it’s basically parity, and if anything it’s slightly worse to be a guy? But that it’s EVEN worse to be a guy everywhere else?? 💀
That really subverts the dominant narrative, and is DEF not the way the U Up podcasters describe it, you should email them with this insight!
Question: If the paper you linked to already has gender ratios of actual users in various cities, why did you create a proxy for that using census and pew data, or am I misunderstanding?
I don’t feel comfortable saying with certainty that it’s parity because I can’t be sure I adjusted correctly for single rates. And the study linked is just one dating app’s data, it’s not actual singles - not every single woman and man are on the app, so you can make some inferences but it’s skewed. But yes it looks pretty rough to be a young man everywhere else, that’s for sure. 😅
As someone who never used a dating app before my early 40s, I find your work Great. It was a bit of an experiment for myself here in NYC lol. I'd be happy to chat and share some experiences and observations if you'd like
I used Bumble and Tinder in NYC when I visited for 2 weeks for work from Chicago. I got 4 matches in total that didn’t respond.
I am 5’7, south Asian, facially average, thin built 33 year old guy with a masters degree making $150K
Is my experience expected for dating apps in NYC?
I also created a profile of a 4’10 Indian ugly fat 45 year old janitor lady for reference on the other phone. She had 1000 likes on Tinder within a week and 100+ good looking men messaging and willing to hookup.
This one is a banger, excellent graphs! The one thing worth pushing back on is this
“From the male side, it’s an embarrassment of riches” - it’s actually only riches for the top 10% of men if you look at the data, where top is defined by height/wealth/ethnicity/education. What ends up happening is most women all go for the same small subset of men because they want the best, and 80-90% of the bottom distribution of men tend to have few to no matches, leading to everyone not getting what they want (the top men on average have little desire to settle when young, since they can all have a harem of women), and hence everyone hating dating apps 🫠
I have talked to a few men in NYC who were more middle of the pack and they do get matches and dates, it’s just not a firehouse. So relatively speaking, they are still much better off!
"it’s not that the average college-educated Manhattan man has it SO GOOD - it’s that men before age 50 have it bad everywhere else."
Do they though? Like if there are massively more single men than women 18-49, but only slightly more unmarried women, it means that there must be either dramatically more women dating men over 50, or dramatically more women dating one guy simultaneously. In the US as a whole there are roughly equal numbers of women and men 18-49, although more men under 35 and more women in their 40s.
If either of that were true, it means that guys can't get a date because they can't compete with men subscribing to AARP magazine for girls their own age, or they can't compete with guys who already have partners, and women are preferring to be an other women than with them. I'd be curious if either was true, I'd expect its more that men are defining single as unmarried and women are defining single as unpartnered.
Also looking back at the unmarried ratio, which is not subject to the squishiness of polling respondents, there’s a definite shortage of woman in the 20s and 30s although not as dramatic. I imagine a reason for this is a lot of women 25-29 and 35-39 are married to men 1-5 years older which pushes them into the next decade bracket up.
That’s a good point, I’m also wondering to what degree the Pew Research numbers are bonked. I think it’s more likely the Pew numbers are not representative enough. I wonder also about the wording of the survey question used for the Pew respondents.
Why are there excess single men in the US as a whole? Male-biased immigration rates?
If so, it's ironic that women complain about "passport bros", given that they're already a beneficiary of an inverse "passport bro" phenomenon due to male-biased immigration.
Another point my trusts & estates professors made: UMC American men die four years earlier than UMC American women, and being a widow is awful, so date accordingly.
My friend had a very negative time on Grindr in Suffolk County. The only DM he got was "Is your height a typo? Like are you actually 6'3", not 5'3"" He also tried to date people from Connecticut but the boat situation sucked. He has a boyfriend now though since moving to the city.
Been there. A lot. Hell, I married a woman I wasn’t a good match with, who eventually left me, but I should’ve broken it off sooner.
I really just can’t turn down an obvious opportunity to write a limerick, and “enlightened” was the best I could do for a difficult rhyme. My apologies if I appeared to be prying. 😇
There are more gay men than lesbian women, which is normally a small effect, but in a city that seems to absorb the LGBT population from the rest of the country, this might be more dramatic (especially since gay men are more likely to get college degrees than straight men, so the college educated population would be impacted even more).
This is a great point! Definitely would affect the ratio.
I just looked the numbers up before I read this comment thread, out of curiosity. More women than men identify as LGBT nowadays, but my anecdotal experience is that the increase is mostly bisexual women who primarily date men.
Also, I suspect more gay men move to large cities, while lesbians are more likelly than gay men to live in small towns, be in the military or have jobs like forest ranger or organic farmer. I personally know more out lesbians than gay men who live in small towns.
Just at a guess, if 5% of men nationally are gay, it's probably at least 10% in gay meccas like NYC, SF, and Atlanta; while women who prefer to date women are probably still more like 5%.
I appreciate these dives—I think I'm personally on the ass end of the bell curve for too many axes to self-apply it. I feel a little unlucky right now that for friends & family reasons I'm moving to Seattle instead of NYC: I am given to understand the gender ratio is terrible for men who date women, and while I've got "very unusually hot & healthy older man" going for me, I don't think that the app filters are going to go well for me given the chronological number. Until there's a "Late Bloomer" box to check, it's on-location charisma for me 🤷♂️
Amazing, love everything about this post, a sumptuously analytic tour de force. :-)
One thing it may be worth doing is breaking out the 18-24 age group rather than having the 20-29 bucket - "singleness" differs very significantly in the rest of the US by these age groups, from ~82% for 18-24yo to ~50% for 25-29yo women:
https://imgur.com/a/AtMXLUG
I don't know if singleness differs by as much in Manhattan, but given the difficulty of dating and locking anyone down, it's probably a good bet singleness is *higher* in both those age groups.
I'm trying to find the source for this graph, I think it was ACS data, but not sure, I just had it saved in my "interesting graphs and factoids" folder - will update this comment if I find it.
Oh interesting, thanks! The issue is that I don’t have 18-24 broken out from the pew research data so I can’t apply it to the ACS data separately. But yes, I think I’m likely undercounting singleness for that age set, the academic study graphs show that - crazy intense from 18-24, gender gap still had but less so 25-29, and a bit more chill thereafter.
Another great piece Lana! So, if I’m interpreting this right, you’re saying the dominant narrative that it’s so much better to be a guy than a woman in NYC is complete BS? When you adjust for being single, it’s basically parity, and if anything it’s slightly worse to be a guy? But that it’s EVEN worse to be a guy everywhere else?? 💀
That really subverts the dominant narrative, and is DEF not the way the U Up podcasters describe it, you should email them with this insight!
Question: If the paper you linked to already has gender ratios of actual users in various cities, why did you create a proxy for that using census and pew data, or am I misunderstanding?
I don’t feel comfortable saying with certainty that it’s parity because I can’t be sure I adjusted correctly for single rates. And the study linked is just one dating app’s data, it’s not actual singles - not every single woman and man are on the app, so you can make some inferences but it’s skewed. But yes it looks pretty rough to be a young man everywhere else, that’s for sure. 😅
Great post. That New Jersey footnote is wild though 😂
Yeah those NJ men know it’s a liability 😂 it was mentioned in the Okcupid blog posts way back when too.
“The Infinite Pussy Glitch” is going to be my new band name.
As someone who never used a dating app before my early 40s, I find your work Great. It was a bit of an experiment for myself here in NYC lol. I'd be happy to chat and share some experiences and observations if you'd like
Loved this whole article!
"generates increasing thoughts that you should move to San Francisco." loled at this line, I received this advice often as a woman dating in NYC
Yeah I might do a longer trip there sometime and write a field report.
I would so read that!
I used Bumble and Tinder in NYC when I visited for 2 weeks for work from Chicago. I got 4 matches in total that didn’t respond.
I am 5’7, south Asian, facially average, thin built 33 year old guy with a masters degree making $150K
Is my experience expected for dating apps in NYC?
I also created a profile of a 4’10 Indian ugly fat 45 year old janitor lady for reference on the other phone. She had 1000 likes on Tinder within a week and 100+ good looking men messaging and willing to hookup.
This one is a banger, excellent graphs! The one thing worth pushing back on is this
“From the male side, it’s an embarrassment of riches” - it’s actually only riches for the top 10% of men if you look at the data, where top is defined by height/wealth/ethnicity/education. What ends up happening is most women all go for the same small subset of men because they want the best, and 80-90% of the bottom distribution of men tend to have few to no matches, leading to everyone not getting what they want (the top men on average have little desire to settle when young, since they can all have a harem of women), and hence everyone hating dating apps 🫠
I have talked to a few men in NYC who were more middle of the pack and they do get matches and dates, it’s just not a firehouse. So relatively speaking, they are still much better off!
Oh nice, glad to hear that
"it’s not that the average college-educated Manhattan man has it SO GOOD - it’s that men before age 50 have it bad everywhere else."
Do they though? Like if there are massively more single men than women 18-49, but only slightly more unmarried women, it means that there must be either dramatically more women dating men over 50, or dramatically more women dating one guy simultaneously. In the US as a whole there are roughly equal numbers of women and men 18-49, although more men under 35 and more women in their 40s.
If either of that were true, it means that guys can't get a date because they can't compete with men subscribing to AARP magazine for girls their own age, or they can't compete with guys who already have partners, and women are preferring to be an other women than with them. I'd be curious if either was true, I'd expect its more that men are defining single as unmarried and women are defining single as unpartnered.
Also looking back at the unmarried ratio, which is not subject to the squishiness of polling respondents, there’s a definite shortage of woman in the 20s and 30s although not as dramatic. I imagine a reason for this is a lot of women 25-29 and 35-39 are married to men 1-5 years older which pushes them into the next decade bracket up.
That’s a good point, I’m also wondering to what degree the Pew Research numbers are bonked. I think it’s more likely the Pew numbers are not representative enough. I wonder also about the wording of the survey question used for the Pew respondents.
Why are there excess single men in the US as a whole? Male-biased immigration rates?
If so, it's ironic that women complain about "passport bros", given that they're already a beneficiary of an inverse "passport bro" phenomenon due to male-biased immigration.
Another point my trusts & estates professors made: UMC American men die four years earlier than UMC American women, and being a widow is awful, so date accordingly.
“There was once a man from Long Island, but we like to pretend that didn’t happen” 🙁 (both parts 1 and 2 of this were great, keep it up!)
My friend had a very negative time on Grindr in Suffolk County. The only DM he got was "Is your height a typo? Like are you actually 6'3", not 5'3"" He also tried to date people from Connecticut but the boat situation sucked. He has a boyfriend now though since moving to the city.
There once was a man from Long Island,
Whom Lana Li dated a while and
Then told him goodbye.
She doesn't say why,
But we'd all love to be enlightened.
He broke up with me, I think he was just not that into it and too busy, but also it just wasn’t a good match and I should have cut it off sooner!
Been there. A lot. Hell, I married a woman I wasn’t a good match with, who eventually left me, but I should’ve broken it off sooner.
I really just can’t turn down an obvious opportunity to write a limerick, and “enlightened” was the best I could do for a difficult rhyme. My apologies if I appeared to be prying. 😇