Name: JP
State: MA
Age: 39
Comment: I met a guy at one of your speeddating events last month. We ended up being a mutual match and set up a date right away. The date went really well (I thought) and at the end of the night he walked me to my car and asked to see me again.

At the end of the week I received an email from him and he told me that he had been out with someone else from the event twice and had decided to see where that went instead of trying to date two different women. I said I understood and wished him luck. Was he lying and didn’t want to tell me he wasn’t interested? Isn’t the whole point of dating to meet different people?

Okay. I did a little research based on your email address and pulled up your attendance and match history. You’ve been to a couple of our speeddating events and you always get at least one match. So that’s a good sign.  But here’s what else I noticed. At the speeddating events you’ve attended, all of the men were from Boston or the surrounding areas (Brookline, Alston, etc.) You, however, lived in a suburb. Actually very close to my home town, which is wicked pissa. Via car, that is an almost 30 minute commute. 45 if you include parking. By train it’s about an hour commute.

Do I think that, if you lived in Boston proper, you would have seen him again? I don’t know. I know a lot of men who don’t like to juggle simply because they aren’t good at it, forget certain stories etc and just find the whole idea of juggling overwhelming. So he could very well be telling the truth. However, where you lived and the commute definitely pushed you over in to the “No” category.

Everybody has one of those detractors. Something pretty big that takes off points. Age, location, body type are the big three.

Let’s start with Age. It’s not rocket science. Men will almost always choose younger. That’s it.

Location. I will brace my self for the inevitable accusations of being an elitist snob when I say this. Location matters. As I said to people at our He Said/She Said event (we’re planning one for Boston in March, btw) recently, if you live in a suburb or in New Jersey then you’re pretty much wasting your time and money signing up for a singles/social event in Manhattan. The reality is that if someone lives in a big city like Boston or DC or Manhattan, they don’t have to leave that city to date. And no, it doesn’t count that you work in the city and are “there all the time.” There is always somebody to date in either Manhattan, Queens, Astoria or Brooklyn. We have everything we need in a nice comfy little radius. That’s why people generally live in a city like Boston or Manhattan or Chicago or DC. Convenience.

Body Type. Okay. Another area where I’ll brace myself for backlash. Being overweight or out of shape in a city that places a strong emphasis on looks/health is not good. It’s a big factor in why someone – male or female – might struggle. Note: If you don’t struggle and do just fine with your body type, then I’m not addressing you. There are plenty of women who do just fine because they carry themselves so well and know their audience. I will say this and say it with the best of intentions – if you’re constantly meeting people who treat you poorly, blow you off, have difficulty getting dates, meet people that have sex with you and never call, use you for free meals etc and you’re carrying around a noticeable amount of extra weight, lose it. Instead of bitching to friends or on blogs, use that time at the gym if only because it will help you live longer and stay healthy.  You and your date might have a fine time together. But if there is someone on the roster who is thinner and just as engaging, guess who is probably going to get the top slot on that person’s dating card?

This is the challenge of dating, especially online dating or speeddating, where people are presented with multiple options. Like that CNN article I posted recently said, that has created a “shopping cart mentality” amongst singles. That’s why it’s important to either accept the reality of your situation or do something to change it and improve your odds.

JP, maybe you should try to date men in your area. If you’re looking for more “sophisticated” guys, then my suggestion is to move closer to the city. Same goes for people in Long Island/New Jersey. You’re competing against convenience, and that is a difficult contest. On the topic of “sophistication” please allow me to say this…A lot of people like to come in to the city for the “culture” and the “sophisticated” atmosphere. For some reason, many people who don’t live in a big city think that the average dater is hob knobbing with Andy Warhol or rich financiers. I think this is another by product of Sex & The City. Maybe on occasion we attend a poetry reading or an art gallery opening, but for the most part we don’t really do anything more than dinner or drinks on dates.

I can remember taking a tour of HowAboutWe.com, a niche dating site where people post profiles along with interesting date ideas, and wondering if people actually did any of those activities on first dates. Personally, I find activity first dates to be rather awkward. But that’s me. In any case, we’re really not as exciting or “sophisticated” as some people who live outside a big city might think. Like I said, most of us live here for the convenience and similar mindsets. Not the culture. People who choose to come to or live in Manhattan “for the culture” are usually either pretentious snobs who are neither intellectual nor cultured or people from small towns with a romanticized idea of what “big city living” is really like.