You’ve gone on lousy date after lousy date, been ghosted more times than you can count and swiped left on someone just because they’re on the opposite side of the freeway from you. So—especially as we approach Valentine’s Day—you might be wondering, is something wrong with me, or is dating in Los Angeles just this disappointing? Well, for better or worse, it turns out it’s not just you.
We asked more than 18,500 city-dwellers about their dating life in Time Out’s most recent globe-spanning best cities survey. Specifically, we sought to find out whether locals think it’s easy to find love in their city.
It turns out they don’t. In fact, Angelenos have such a dismal view of the dating scene here that L.A. was tied for fifth place (with New York) for the worst cities in the world for finding love. Only 26 percent of local respondents said it’s easy to find love in L.A.
That was at least far better than the 14 percent of respondents in Bilbao, Span who said the same, and therefore claimed the crown of the worst city for finding love; on the opposite end, a world-leading 72 percent of locals in Mumbai had a positive outlook on the dating scene in the Indian metropolis.
So hit up some singles bars and try some of our date idea suggestions (including first date ideas). And if those don’t work? Hopefully you find comfort in the knowledge that the vast majority of the city thinks the dating scene kind of sucks too. (And people say L.A. lacks unity…)
Find Time Out’s ranking of the best (and worst) cities in the world for dating here.