A Valentine's Day Investigation

This Tuesday, I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed and came across a post being shared by friends about a terrible Connecticut city for dating. (Spoiler Alert: It’s New Haven).

I’m 100% sure WFSB tripped over themselves at the unadulterated joy of being able to spread viral bad news about Connecticut. Think of the engagement! The shares! The likes!

Is it news? Is it causing further damage to the psyche of the citizens who rely on us? Who cares! Post it! Think of the analytics!

If you haven’t heard the, uh, “news,” ApartmentListing.com recently named New Haven, Connecticut, the second worst website in America for dating, behind only Palm Bay, Florida.

First of all, kudos to WFSB for finding this BREAKING NEWS. And also for arranging the information in a hard-to-read slideshow using exactly the same Pixabay picture for every city because they are willing to pay exactly as much in licensing fees as your favorite New Haven-based blog.

Oh, New Haven, you loveless, broken city.

Since WFSB lacks the journalistic credibility of a medium-sized blog, let’s let’s flex the ol’ journalistic integrity for a second and ask…

Is It True?

First, can we trust the source. The information itself is not from WFSB, but from the brilliant scientists, educators, and statisticians at ApartmentListing.com, which ranked New Haven 65 out of 66 cities.

First of all, I had no idea there were only 67 American cities. That seems… low? Especially given New Haven isn’t even one of the largest 200 cities in America.

El Paso, Texas? Sorry, folks, not a real city, apparently, since it’s not on the list.

Deltona, Florida? Absolutely a real city. One of the 67 most important cities in America, some apartment-listing websites might say.

So what methodology was used?

Per their site:

Apartment List said it looked at survey data from more then 9,000 of its users, which were based across the U.S. The data involved single renters who were looking for love and a new place to call home.

The cities were ranked in terms of the percentage of users who had dating success in that particular place.

Only 12.84 percent of users said they had dating success in New Haven.

9,000 people? Well, shit. That’s like… half of everyone.

Or like… 13% of the population of Deltona, Florida.

Things are starting to look pretty grim. So just to recap, this is a survey of people who:

Live in one of the 67 cities there are in America (not El Paso)

Know what ApartmentListing.com is

Use ApartmentListing.com

Think it’s a pretty good idea to give their thoughts on dating to ApartmentListing.com

And let me tell you: those people do not think New Haven is great for dating. And who are we to deny those 15 people?

Better just pack up your shit and move to the Dating meccas (of These 67 Cities We Apparently Chose at Random)

Austin, Texas

Charlotte, North Carolina

San Francisco, California

Who knew being a rich person living in the Bay Area would make dating so fun?

Okay, but for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that an extremely limited self-selecting survey from one apartment listing website nobody uses is totally accurate and absolutely worth reporting on and not at all cynical clickbait to drive user engagement because you’re nothing more than a lifeless husk of the national news and human interest stories.

Then what?

Let’s Say It’s True

Let’s say New Haven is not an ideal place to date. Even though it has all of the hallmarks of a great dating city:

Transient population counting down the days until they can leave

Brutalist, foreboding architecture

Pizza restaurants famous for poor service and lines out the door

Wanton gun violence

Touches East Haven

Okay, fair enough. Maybe it’s not perfect.

Y’know what? Too bad.

Your great-grandparents probably only knew like 15 people in the village and only one had good birthing hips, which is a weird quality in a man, but hey, you’ve got limited options. Congratulations on your marriage, please give these goats to your father.

A transient city like New Haven can be tough. But just think of it like playing a video game on the hardest difficulty setting. C’mon, playing on Easy is lame. You’re not lame. You’re cool.

Yes, we get it everything in Connecticut is terrible. It’s freezing, nobody knows how to drive, something something taxes, you get the idea.

And what if you accidentally do find yourself in a relationship with someone from New Haven?

This Relationship Sucks

Of course, not every romance can work out. You’ve tried gifts. You’ve tried not communicating. Nothing seems to work.

But what if I told you, that’s a secret way to make every relationship work.

Just trap them by getting them/yourself pregnant! There’s nothing wrong with your relationship that an unwanted pregnancy can’t solve!

Imagine sitting down with your future son or daughter 13 years from now as you gently explain that their existence could not save your loveless marriage, but you still sort of love them!

Dad, are you still reading?

So, Is All Hope Lost?

Yes, of course. If nothing else, that’s the one lesson I’d hope you get from this blog.

Okay, but seriously. Dating is hard. People are deluged with a plethora of dating apps and options, an endless sea of pictures of attractive people in yoga poses and holding fish. We’re all crushed by student loan debt and existential dread.

But probably all those happy morons in Charlotte are gonna get divorced anyway to just relax and have a good time. Just remember that no matter what, the grass is always greener.

(Also, thanks to writing this, ApartmentListing.com is now all over my Facebook wall. Goddamnit.)

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