Friday night I had an epiphany: there are a ton of dudes in San Diego. I met a friend out for some drinks in a part of downtown called Little Italy. I walked in, looked around and realized that probably 75% of the population in the bar was male. After thinking more about it, I realized that pretty much whenever I head out downtown, the odds are heavily in my favor. My roommate's boyfriend jokingly calls it the "Man Diego" effect. Penelope Trunk also pointed out this phenomenon in a recent blog post. Check this link out: http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/ 2007/04/the_singles_map.html
Summary findings from the map: very good to be a single female in Southern California; very good to be a single male in the New York/New Jersey area.
Clearly by relocating to Southern California, I have moved the supply of the single male population in my favor. Then I started wondering: if there are so many more available single men out here, why haven't I found an abundance of good looking dating prospects yet?
This question was still swirling around in my mind when I went over to a co-worker's BBQ yesterday evening. True to form, the party mix was probably two-thirds male to one-third female outside of the several couples at the party. I looked around and concluded that several of the guys were pretty attractive. Hmmm.
As the party wore on and the drinks continued to flow, eventually the testosterone level began rising. One guy, who happened to be quite an attractive lad, decided to put my co-worker's dog's shock collar on. This shock collar is designed to administer a shock every time the dog barks. So naturally, he started to bark to see how bad the shock was. It drew a good chuckle from the majority of the crowd and, with the increased testosterone level, of course he encouraged the other males in the room to try it out. When one protested, he used the fifth grade taunt of, "What's the matter, are you scared?" Which of course got the other guy to try out the shock collar.
That's when I realized that although the supply of single males is now in my favor, it doesn't negate the fact that sheer volume doesn't translate into higher quality. Perhaps this is further exacerbated by the fact that many people are drawn to Man Diego for the lifestyle. Maybe the men that move to Southern California are the kinds of guys who prefer to hang out at the beach all day and then go to parties where they try on dog's shock collars to amuse their friends. I will continue to explore and blog about this thesis as time goes on...
