A CITY OF WINGS & FLINGS
Surprise! Buffalo is one of the best cities for single-at least if you're a man
BUFFALO — Cold temperatures, warm hearts. New research from the Thriving Center of Psychology has found that Buffalo is one of the best cities in America to be single.
The western New York metropolis has the third most single people per capita compared to other major cities, according to the survey, which relied on US census data. But it also boasts the most single women per capita of any city, and the ninth most single men.
Buffalo bachelors, especially, are cheering the favorable conditions.
“When it comes to casual dating, there isn’t much effort that needs to be put in,” Trevor Kearns, a 29-yearold software designer, told The Post.
A low cost of living
Connecting with single ladies does not require going out of the way, he noted. You can “just live your life like you normally do” and meet people.
But some guys can take “no effort” too far. Nassema Dawkins, a 24-yearold administrative assistant, recounted a triple date she went on where one of the men did not dress to impress.
“[The ladies] got dressed up for a triple date, heels, makeup, all of that,” she said. “But we did not go out because one of the men decided to wear sweatpants and wasn’t allowed into the club.”
The new data dovetails with an indepth study from LendingTree last year that billed Buffalo as the largest US metropolitan area “most friendly to singles” and found that 55.4% of residents were unmarried.
The city’s affordability is a key reason it’s good for bachelors and bachelorettes. The cost of living is 39% below New York state’s average and 5% below the nation’s as a whole, according to RentCafe, an apartment search website.
Thanks to the favorable economics, residents don’t have to couple up.
“You don’t need someone to split your rent with you,” said Steve Carr, a 32-year-old who works for an electric company and pays $825 for a two-bedroom apartment. “I’ve lived alone now for seven years and I couldn’t imagine even living with a partner.”
Thomas Crane, 24, a server at Jack Rabbit bar — a popular spot for singles in Buffalo’s hip Elmwood Village neighborhood — agrees.
“There isn’t a ton of pressure to settle down,” he told The Post. “There are a lot of young single people just focusing on themselves.”
In February, the average one-bedroom in Buffalo rented for $1,000, compared to $3,350 in NYC and $2,365 in Los Angeles, according to real estate website Zumper.
Nights on the town don’t break the bank either, which is a major plus for singles.
“You have this lifestyle here, a very easygoing lifestyle,” professional Buffalo matchmaker Therese Forton, 60, told The Post. “Whether your love is the arts and theater or our sports teams, it’s all affordable.”
The singles culture tends to be centered around meeting people in bars, not online, in part because the city is so small — 277,000 residents — that dating apps don’t offer the quantity and anonymity that they
do in larger cities.
Residents often see familiar faces who either they — or close friends — have been with, gone to school with or whose families tailgate together at Bills games.
“You don’t want to ruin your yearslong reputation within five minutes,” said 36-year-old musician Aaron Anson. “Because everybody will know and find out about it very quickly and there’s no coming back from it.”
Buffalo’s heterosexual bachelorettes question just how good the city’s singles scene is for them.
“There’s a lot of hot women here. There’s a lot of babes here,”
There isn’t much effort that needs to be put in.
said Justine Powers, a 30-year-old who does marketing for a craft beer company, told The Post. “I just feel like with the pool of attractive women [compared to] a lot of the guys here, it’s very skewed,” she added.
But some love the hometown guys.
“Gotta love a Buffalo boy with similar values . . . loves his mom, loves the Bills,” said Michaela Feeney, a 24-year-old nanny.
She added that having looks like quarterback Josh Allen are huge bonus points. Looking for lust
Others aren’t so charmed by the locals. Emily Sansone said she’s taken to going over the border to Toronto to meet better men.
“[Men here] put in the effort for the wrong reasons,” Sansone, a 24-year-old veterinary technician, told The Post. “They just want to form a sexual relationship.”
Kearns doesn’t deny that men in the area can be that way, but said he tries to be clear about what he’s looking for.
“A lot of people hate me for this, [but] I preach the word ‘expectations,’ ” he said.
“I tried to be clear in the beginning, and I say like, ‘Hey I would like to go out with you. Let’s just try this out.’ Normally, they think that’s their audition to get married or something like that.”
Such misconstrued messages could be as common to Buffalo as a heartbreaking playoff game.
“They call us the city of good neighbors,” said Dawkins, “but really it’s the city of bad daters and worse communicators.”
— Trevor Kearns on dating in Buffalo, which has the most single women per capita of any US city