Dating in big cities is hard. Dating in Los Angeles can be especially tough, but we do it anyway, because being single in L.A. is even worse. And Angelenos are actually pretty good at dating... casually, that is. We love a good fling, but aren't great at finding lasting love, as proven in our Global City Index survey results. Here's the breakdown.
Angelenos have sex 1.38 times per week on average—which doesn't seem like much until you consider that only Paris, truly the city of love, came out on top (heyo) at 1.64 times per week, and the fact that we're having way more sex on average than other big cities such as New York (1.2 times per week, pretty weak for the city that never sleeps) and Tokyo (.63 times per week).
Maybe we're getting laid so much because we're doing it with multiple people. Thirty-one percent of Angelenos think it's okay to date more than one person simultaneously; the only city more open-minded is NYC with 33 percent, but from Chicago (26 percent) on down to London (16 percent), other cities are not on board with the poly (or more likely, the don't ask don't tell) lifestyle.
Where are we finding all these willing partners? Thirty-eight percent of Angelenos have had a fling at work, second only to Sydney at 40 percent. More prude (and less likely to get a talking to from HR) are colleagues in cities like Mexico City (30 percent) and Lisbon (24 percent). And a whopping 24 percent of Angelenos have gone so far to have had sex in the workplace (versus 26 percent in Miami and 31 percent in racy Barcelona).
We're great at doing our due diligence before dates; 49 percent of Angelenos Google the person we're about to go out with. But we're even better at actually doing our dates, with 37 percent of us reporting that it's totally cool to sleep with someone on a first date. And hell, we don't even always need a date night to butter us up; over half of us (61 percent, to be exact), report having had a one-night stand.
And there's the rub (get your mind out of the gutter): It's all fun and games when we're getting laid in the supply closet or after a few drinks and some small talk, but only 3.75 percent of Angelenos actually think it's easy to find love in L.A. In fact, only a sad, measly 3 percent of us report actually being happy with the dating scene in L.A. To put this in perspective, New York and Chicago are within 1 percent of Los Angeles (misery loves company), but people in cities in other countries are over 10 times as happy as Angelenos; 31 percent are psyched in Sao Paulo and Tokyo, and 40 percentr dig the dating scene in Mexico City. Maybe it's our country—or the state of our union—that's making us lose faith in love?!
Or maybe some of us just don't deserve it.... A quarter of Angelenos admit to having had an affair—not quite so awful as 31 percent in Miami or 40 percent in Mexico City (que lastima!), but substantially higher than the more loyal folks in Melbourne (20 percent) and Singapore (18 percent).
But we're certainly trying: 12 percent of Angelenos reported using a dating app within a week of taking our survey, and 41 percent reported going on a date within that same week. Whether the goal of said dates was a tumble in the sheets or a soulmate for life (or maybe both?), we're still not sure.
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