observations and stereotypes, young women and young men, locations and cultures, etc.

[thatone]

these threads brought all this to mind, i've been holed up at home with wisdom tooth removal and a busted knee for a couple weeks so i've got a lot of time on my hands and have read way too much loveshack, and reflected a bit on the cities i've lived in, rural areas i've lived in, and different areas of the country i have spent more than a week long work trip or vacation in.

 

fwiw, those areas are....

 

dallas

new orleans

little rock

st louis

 

rural arkansas

rural louisiana

rural texas

(never spent a lot of time in rural missouri or illinois)

 

and for the record i'm white and 34 years old, so i'm talking about white people in their early 20s to mid 30s here, i have no experience with the older crowds in these areas or the teenage crowd since that was so (soo...) long ago, or other races/ethnic backgrounds.

 

anyways, the idea that came to mind is we see a lot of generalizations about women and men on this forum, but we rarely see generalizations about the culture of particular areas of the USA, and i think that has a lot to do with dating and relationships.

 

first the rural

 

all of the rural areas i've lived in in the south are basically similar, but for different reasons. rural arkansas is generally comprised of bitter and judgmental people. they do not leave the area they grew up in and overly criticize places they do visit for whatever reason to make home seem less dismal. rural louisiana people are similar, but for a different reason. they also do not typically travel far, and rarely move far, but it's not because of a bruised ego, it's because of an attachment to the culture where they are from. strong, strong family ties (stronger than other cultures) and a desire to remain close to people of the same values (which is food and liquor, honestly). for instance, it's not uncommon to meet people along US HWY 90 between lafayette and the outlying river parishes who have never been to downtown new orleans, and get lost easier than tourists do. really. people who have lived across the river from new orleans for 50 years never go, and don't know where to go. rural east texas people are a hybrid of the two. they are critical of places they don't go to, but it's not a bitter, depressed critical like arkansas is, it's more of a 'texas pride' thing. it's not that they fear change, they just like the familiar.

 

so how does this play out with men/women?

 

well, a lot of the people i went to high school with in east texas never left. a lot of 'former cheerleader married to the former quarterback' situations. their lives are just like their parents' lives. they had their glory years in high school, got some sort of college education nearby, and went to work at the plant. they married someone they knew from high school and the wife works at a local shop or the local hospital or something similar. it's very 50s-esque. they're not critical of the rest of the world, they just never wanted it. they're generally happy people from my experience in contacting friends from high school.

 

you have the same thing in arkansas, but arkansas people as stated above are bitter and fearful more than just content. you have similar situations where lots of people married high school acquaintances or sweethearts, but not as much due to just liking where they're from, but a combination of bitter about lack of opportunity but fearful of leaving. so they settle, in droves they settle. you see lots of strange couples with very attractive men and ugly women or very attractive women with ugly men. at some point i think the generally miserable culture gets the best of people and they give up and marry the next person that comes along. younger people often talk about leaving but they rarely do, because there's an economic gap. a middle class family here is poor in any other city. so parents don't even have the means of sending kids to school out of state. they're stuck here. arkansas' motto being "land of opportunity" is a great irony, basically.

 

rural south louisiana is similar in that people tend to stay and not leave, and marry within their circle of friends from their younger years, but there's much more family input and pressure. it's almost feudal. every family in a town knows every other family, not just generally but they know individuals, the old folks can name an entire other family by first name and employment and accomplishments or failures. it's scary how much they know about each other. as such there's a sort of feudal pressure for both men and women to marry into 'respectable' families locally. economic opportunity is generally pretty high in most of these areas, though, since rural south louisiana still has oil production and chemical production and the shipping industries there so there is still well paying blue collar work. again, it's a 50s-esque atmosphere in many places, like east texas, and for similar reasons. and like east texas, they're generally happy people.

 

as for the cities

 

dallas and st louis are similar. people you meet for the most part are not from these areas. there are natives, of course, but a much higher concentration of people who came for economic opportunity (college or corporate work). as such, dating and marriage seem to be a bit segregated by economic class in these places but the pools of single, attractive people are pretty large. which makes sense since most people moved to these places when they were single for work. for dating purposes, i would consider these cities 'hot spots' if you see dating as a numbers game.

 

new orleans is different, there isn't a lot of economic opportunity in the city itself, there's actually more in the rural areas of south louisiana. people move to new orleans because they like the lifestyle. so for different reasons, it's also a good dating city. lots of single people in lots of concerts and bars and restaurants and open air downtown type concentrated places EVERY DAY. it's kinda like living in a city before cars back in the early 1900s, i would think. i would suspect the social life in cities like new york and chicago to be similar, logistically, although i haven't spent extended time or dated in either. the crowd in new orleans is young, generally attractive, generally educated, and very social. tourists go there to have a good time, and the locals live there because they like living near a good time, in short.

 

little rock is an extension of the rest of the state. the people who live in little rock are those who managed to escape rural arkansas because they were smarter or more attractive somehow than the rest of the locals where they are from. there is a bit of a 'blue blood' population of families that have always lived in and around the city, but everyone else came from nearby, for the most part. even though the city of little rock itself isn't bad, it isn't great. there's not a lot of single/social activities, what little there is is catered to local natives, not people who have moved in single to go to school or work. people don't often stay who came in from out of state, they get frustrated with the lack of a social life and leave, from my experience. it's a place where you live cheap and save your money so you can go someplace better when you get a chance.

 

so what does all of this translate to for dating?

 

well, the short answer that i kept thinking while typing all of this is...

 

if you want to go somewhere where there's a dating crowd, go, but go somewhere that has something to offer. i think people put too much emphasis on the people they meet and fail to find relationships with, and not enough emphasis on the places they meet people but fail to find relationships in.

 

from my experiences in new orleans, dallas, and st louis, virtually anyone should be able to find an attractive match in such cities. if you don't, something is wrong with you. little rock or the rural areas? the polar opposite. if you do find an attractive match in such a place you better marry her/him because you aren't going to have much luck in general. the locals don't want to date outsiders and the outsiders with better options will leave. what's left is a pretty pathetic pool of single people. the exception to that is south rural south louisiana, since there is economic opportunity in those places and the people are pretty accepting of outsiders, at least moreso than other rural southern areas are, as long as you're ok with their culture and their activities (which will never change).

 

and if anyone else finds this wall of text interesting i'd be very interested in hearing about the cultures of people in other parts of the US (and the world) that i'm not as familiar with.

[aj22one]

First of all, my sympathies on the wisdom teeth. Mine came in fine and my dentist recommended leaving them in. But I do sometimes worry about them developing problems down the line. And if they do I think I'd rather have them out sooner than later. But anyway...

 

I've lived my whole life in the DMV (that's D.C., Maryland, Virginia) almost exclusively in Northern Virginia. The closer you get to D.C. (on either side of the Potomac) the higher the concentration of young educated professionals. So there is somewhat of a singles scene.

 

Interesting enough though, a large number of women I went to high school with are married or engaged. I went to school in the suburbs, not a rural area. And, these married women are in pretty well paying jobs, and have college degrees (many have Masters). The feeling I get from them is that they simply viewed getting married as something to check off on a list (the earlier the better). It's sort of like small town culture meeting big city opportunity.

 

I've never lived anywhere else so I really have no frame of reference for comparison.

[ThsAmericanLife]

Yes... sympathies on the wisdom teeth. Had mine out when I was 16. Pain meds made me loopy and queezy at the same time. Pretty much slept for a week.

 

Regarding the OP... I've got lots to offer on this topic, since I'm in the process of moving to a more dating friendly location. I agree with you that the best economic opportunities and dating opportunities go hand in hand. I've done a ton of personal research on this. Plus I've lived in a bunch of places. Both coasts. North and South. Have relatives who live in the Midwest. Lots to draw on..

 

Where I'm at now... those who can leave, do. I was originally drawn here by a large, multi-national company... but it is basically a one company town. Now that I don't work there anymore (and even if I did), I'd be headed to a better location for meeting people.

 

Can offer more once I tie up some knots on work due tomorrow...

[thatone]

First of all, my sympathies on the wisdom teeth. Mine came in fine and my dentist recommended leaving them in. But I do sometimes worry about them developing problems down the line. And if they do I think I'd rather have them out sooner than later. But anyway...

 

 

in fairness to the dental surgeon, it wasn't nearly as bad as i expected it to be. after 3 days i was eating normal food (carefully) there's just lingering nerve sensitivity at this point. tried to eat a steak earlier and that was a bit much (it's now been 5 days, was done last friday afternoon). i was off the opiate pain pills after 4 days and now just getting by on advil.

 

the knee is the kicker, pun intended. i'm supposed to stay off of it for 2 weeks. stress fracture . figured since i'm supposed to lay around and do nothing for the knee i might as well do the wisdom teeth now and kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

 

from what they told me as long as they grow in straight and with room you should be ok. an xray every now and then would be sufficient to check up on them. one of mine started to go sideways and impact another tooth so i went ahead with removing them all per the dentist's recommendation.

Edited September 23, 2011 by thatone