We’re already pretty familiar with which cities in the U.S. are the most friendly for singletons — but if you’re currently hitting the dating scene, you might want to think about relocating to one of the 10 most open-minded dating cities instead. Apparently the singletons of these cities are most willing to date someone with different viewpoints on such hot topics as kids, religion, and education.
According to a new study conducted by online dating site Zoosk, the cities you’d think would be pretty unbiased when it comes to dating may not actually be as such. Said Zoosk co-founder and CEO Shayan Zadeh in a statement, “With more than 25 million members on Zoosk, we recognize that there are millions of online daters around the world with varying viewpoints and levels of open-mindedness. Our open-mindedness study of singles across the United States uses Zoosk’s wealth of data and knowledge of trends to shed light into cities behavioral dating patterns.” Here’s what they found:
The Top 10 Most Open-Minded Cities for Dating:
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Detroit, Michigan
- Columbus, Ohio
- Sacramento, California
- San Antonio, Texas
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Jacksonville, Florida
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Memphis, Tennessee
I’m trying reeeeeeally hard not to make a “What happens in Vegas” joke, but well… too late.
Anyway, I’ll admit to being somewhat surprised by the results; California, which you’d think would be pretty laissez-faire, only has one city on the least, and liberal-leaning states like New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon aren’t on there at all. An on the other end of the spectrum, we have...drumroll, please...
The Top 10 Least Open-Minded Cities for Dating:
- Raleigh, North Carolina
- San Jose, California
- Birmingham, Alabama
- Richmond, Virginia
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Washington DC
- San Diego, California
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Riverside, California
- Orlando, Florida
Ah. So that’s where California falls. Now I’m even more surprised.
But even if certain cities didn’t score highly on open-mindedness overall, many of them do when it comes to specific dating criteria. Ranging from what religion you practice to whether you’ve been married previously and from whether you smoke to how tall you are, the results are pretty eye-opening (don’t you just love a good infographic? I know I do):
<img alt="Zoosk_Most-and-Least-Open-Minded-Cities-Infographic_Outlines_FINAL" src="https://about.zoosk.com/static//2014/04/Zoosk_Most-and-Least-Open-Minded-Cities-Infographic_Outlines_FINAL.jpg" class="article-body-image"/>
I don’t really tend to put much belief in either the saying that opposites attract or in the one that says great minds think alike; when it comes to relationships, sure, some people are more compatible than others, but I think it’s wisest to assess everything on a case-by-case basis. Apparently there are places that are more amenable to this school of thought than others, though, which I find kind of interesting. Do with it what you will, though. Ready, set, date!
