Blame Your Dating Life On Your 'Hood

With the release of the book, The Sexual Organization of the City, which claims to refute the myth that cities are better for singles to meet other people, the Post's music writer, Mary Huhn, employs the main author, Edward Laumann, in anaylzing her New York dating schema. After looking at her diary of social events, he decrees, "Your scene seems to be fairly typical: urban-dwelling, 20-something, professional singles with a good income." God, we are a dime a dozen, aren't we? Laumann also confirms Huhn's hypothesis that hanging with the gang can prevent new connections: "If your crowd is of long standing and very comfortable to you, it reduces the incentive to look for new ties." That's true; speaking from our experience, when you and your friends are annoying, self-concerned bastards/bitches, you'll only end up cranky, or, at best, dating variations on that theme.

The book basically says that since people run in the same cicles both socially and with their work and neighbor activities (going to the same clubs, restaurants, etc.), they are limiting themselves in meeting new people and doing new things. Laumann also breaks New York into two kinds of relationship-making areas, "transactional" and "relational." Transactional neighborhoods are the ones where all the singles seem to be hanging out, the ones with the good bars, good cheap restaurants, good music scenes, which in turns means it's a place for "short-term, noncommittal relationships." Hello, East Village, Lower East Side, and Williamsburg, or as Huhn says, "almost everything south of 14th Street." On the flipside, staid places overrun with strollers, like the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Carroll Gardens, and Park Slope are "relational," where smug marrieds help their single friends find dates.

Gothamist is tempted to buy the book, but unfortunately, the book is based on observations made in Chicago, a.k.a., "America's biggest small town." Since we don't think Laumann and his team are hitting NYC anytime soon, tell Gothamist what your neighborhood has done (or hasn't done) for your dating life. We'll go first: While half of Gothamist lives on the Upper West Side, the fact that there were no settled friends in the neighborhood meant we were trolling downtown, in apparently the transactional part of town, for dates. The other half of Gothamist manages to be in a steady, relational relationship south of 14th Street.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on March 8, 2004 11:17 AM

Comments [rss]

jack

yeah, I gotta agree with this. I live in the LES and I be bangin all sorts of poon every day. You can't help but trip over all the tail down here! But really, I just want to find someone to hold...my cock in her mouth.

aline

hold the phone, i just read the post about hell's kitchen, and i see what is going on in the old 'hood. ewww

aline

i love how the singles are coming out of the woodwork wondering where all the other singles are. (gothamistster?)

when i lived in hell's kitchen, there were no strollers or hooking up, although, so many places have opened now that i think the locals do stay in the 'hood for some transactional relating.

Max

Strollers and Dogs. Funny how those are the benchmarks of certain 'hoods. I fled the UWS due to the combo of S&Ds and very narrow sidewalks. Much better now in my CGardens digs (with my GF of 6 years - met while in WVillage and moved thru LES and UWS)

tien

i guess that whenever hte next gothamist/601 happy hour happens, there's going to be a lot of courting.

valery

Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights are definitely relational scenes. I am shacked up in Fort Greene and I must say that the stroller gridlock is hardly as oppressive here as in other Brooklyn nabes. Thank the lordy.

lara

I'm 25, and I've lived on the outskirts of Park Slope for 2+ years. Right now I'm in one of the annoying couples cohabitatating therein, but my boyfriend lived in Bay Ridge when we met. The handful of guys I dated before meeting him also lived elsewhere in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Queens. I went to bars and shows quite a bit, but I experienced the most success in meeting guys via the internet, including my current boyfriend.

I think that the more mainstream prevalence/acceptance of internet socializing in New York and other big cities makes it a little easier to meet people with similar interests in any neighborhood, at nearly any time of year... At least, that's how I've met 20-something men while living in stroller central. Before NYC I lived in North Carolina, where I had no luck with men at all-- via the internet or otherwise.

Andrew

So I can blame the fact that I live in Brooklyn Heights? Phew. I'll just agree with the previous assessments that it is very very heavily in the "relational" side of the counter...

jake@bluejake.com

i always had plenty of luck getting dates in park slope- i met my first real girlfriend there when i was 16. i remember feeling so excited about it that i felt sick. we made out on the benches in prospect park, in the classrooms at garfield temple, and in a series of parents' bedrooms in brownstones from one end of the neighborhood to the other. good times!

Tom

I'm 23 and I hope I don't die before I find a stable relationship in the city. But Boston (my hometown) isn't much better, I don't think. THe thing is, none of my friends like to go to bars and clubs so I guess the book is right in the sense of not expanding my horizons. Blah.

corie

I'm there with the Park Slope people. It seems like everyone is holding some one's hand and pushing a baby stroller. It made my single ass quite depressed when I transitioned into the area this past fall.

scotty

I'll have to break with the pack here: I've lived with my girlfriend for two years in the East Village, and we're getting married, in the East Village, this spring.

Although we seem pretty alone--all of our married or committed couple friends seem to live in Brooklyn. Of course, everybody seems to live in Brooklyn these days, single or otherwise.

karatechimp

Was the drummer's girlfriend Drew Barrymore?

Glenn

In my few years here I haven't seen a single NYC relationship that has succeeded (that didn't exist before I arrived), be it in Park Slope or the East Village. Eventually, everybody breaks up.

Rafael

I live in park slope, and like Sara, my building is also filled with middle age singles... But it is hard to walk around the rest of the neigborhood without being run over by strollers. So where are these cute singles you speak of? Or is it a trade secret...

Linus

Well, he was a drummer - whadja speck?

Aaron / 601am

Yet more proof that it's much easier to find love outside NYC than it is in. My friends who have escaped, err, left the city to saner places like Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Michigan all report a much more successful dating life than they had living here. People actually *date* elsewhere, as opposed to a very, ahem, transactional (i.e. a couple of hours) scene here.

Makes me wonder why I even bother staying.

Jen

The day before I moved out of Park Slope, I met a guy on the F train to Manhattan. He was cute, a drummer, etc. I went out with him three times. Then he mentioned he had a girlfriend. So that's relational for you.

Dietsch

Happy relational in Maclaren Central (i.e., Park Slope), but before hooking up with Jennifer, was below 14th St. at least three nights a week--usually striking out. There are cute singles in Park Slope, though, if you know how to ferret 'em out.

Sara

I too live in Brooklyn Heights, which is like a black hole...nary a hot dude in sight, save for the occasional hot and hip dad. I leave my apartment dressed for a night on the town and I pretty much look like an alien amongst the stroller-pushing and sweatpant wearing neighborhood residents.

I love my apartment, but I've got to get out of here. The worst part is that my building is depressingly filled with singles who are all 10 years older than me. Eek! I can't become one of them!