Monday, August 05, 2002
Singles lament stale dating scene
Number of never-marrieds grows as living trends change
By Shauna Scott Rhone srhone@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
First of a five-day series
What does it mean to be single in Cincinnati? Nonstop parties? Hot nightspots with free-flowing honeys. Bar-waltzing with friends. Happy stories of men and women finding the perfect match. Hardly.
At a time when Cincinnati's single population is at an all-time high and growing, singles have a hard time finding compatible dates here and places to take them. The Enquirer convened a panel of singles and interviewed experts to find out why.
Their conclusions: The lame city reputation is due, in part, to limited cultural attractions, the Midwestern ambience and a focus on family life. A critical problem, both singles and experts say, is that single Generation Xers aren't good at connecting with each other.
“Cincinnati is so conservative that the singles scene is stale,” says Chris Ott, 24, of Kenwood.
“A lot of people I know say they like it here,” says Christopher Smith, a 38-year-old native Cincinnatian who lives downtown. “We just need more things to keep singles” here to provide a solid, long-term economic base for the future of the region.
One of the problems, he says, is the pro-family atmosphere works against the pro-single lifestyle. He hopes the new increase in singles signals to the body politic the value of its unmarried residents.
Experts say the characteristics that define Generation X work against them in the dating scene.
“What we have now is new in history,” says David Popenoe, a professor at Rutgers University who conducted a nationwide survey of attitudes on marriage. “People are living on their own, free to changing jobs and situations. There really isn't a good way to meet people compatible with what you like.”
The Enquirer Singles Panel includes (front) Chris Ott, Marta Trujillo, Sarah Hawkins and Christa Joy Johnson; (back) Chris Smith, Betsy Knight, Grace Hou, Debbie Riggs and Johnathan Michael Cobb. Not pictured: Brian Vonderbrink, Sarah Underwood and Phil Harrell.
(Steven M. Herppich photo)
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For the first time in history, he says, a generation of singles - the mobile, career-loving, later-marrying Generation X - has abandoned traditional networks of family, community and college for meeting compatible people. Instead of networking to find mates, Gen Xers network to improve their careers.
According to detailed breakdowns released this summer from the 2000 Census, 414,025 men and women of marriageable age in the Tristate have never married. There was an increase of 50,000 of these “never married” singles in 10 years.
Singles were already complaining about the lackluster dating scene last year when Forbes online magazine, forbes.com, proclaimed Cincinnati the worst of 40 metropolitan cities for living the single life. This year, the forbes.com survey raised the ranking a notch, to No. 39.
That survey, along with AOL Digital City's fifth-best ranking for Cincy as a singles town, just confirmed what many singles were already saying about what it is like to be an unattached, companion-seeking person here.
It means “you are home early enough to watch the beginning of Saturday Night Live but asleep before it ends,” says Betsy Knight, 27, of Fairfield.
Being single means “staying single,” says Debbie Riggs of Fort Mitchell. “Sorry. I agree with Forbes on this one.”
“Being singular in Cincinnati means that your chances of meeting Mrs. Right are outweighed by settling for Mrs. Notsowrong,” says 32-year-old Jonathan Michael Cobb, of Kennedy Heights.
Smaller Midwestern cities like Cincinnati usually get a bad rap in national surveys. When Forbes scoured the country for singles nirvana, bigger cities like Boston, Austin, Baltimore and Washington, garnered star ratings.
Boston is the top city this year in the forbes.com survey. It got its high marks in areas where Cincinnati slumbers: a well-developed culture scene, its positive national reputation (what forbes.com calls “coolness”), a vibrant nightlife and a singles population “engaged” with the community.
Cincy was rapped for its high cost of living and a squishy, almost-stagnant job market. While the survey acknowledged the increased number of singles here, the city was hammered for hosting a nightlife on life support and failing to provide a strong cultural community.
Davide Dukcevich of forbes.com defends the survey as a measure of public perception.
“We know it's completely subjective but putting numbers to it lends a degree of objectivity to it,” he says.
Putting the perception of Cincinnati aside, things are tough all over for singles because marriage hasn't been high on the Generation X priority list.
The Marriage Project at Rutgers University paints a bleak picture of dating in America. This year, the project's annual review on relationships examined the drought in the marriage pool for Generation Xers and their attitudes on marriage and commitment.
In the past, people married younger during times when they were still in touch with their families, says Dr. Popenoe, professor of sociology at Rutgers University and co-director of the National Marriage Project.
“Marriage had a larger role in society,” Dr. Popenoe says. “There were smaller communities so more groups of people knew each other as they grew up. Also, college was a very important matchmaking place. Often, college provided the best singles community for people seeking mates.
“Today, with much later marriages and people more focused on careers, there has arisen a “singles time of life' which is longer than before,” he says. “People today are often removed from the direct influence of the families they grew up with.
Dr. Popenoe says most people meet new partners through mutual friends. He also says a lot of singles' friendship communities are where they work, although they resist “hooking up” at work because of the resulting discomfort if the relationship doesn't work out.
Even the nightclub scene is different for men and women.
“When women go to bars and nightclubs, you have a much better distinction” between what men and women look for, says Dr. Popenoe.
“Women look at bars for opportunistic marriage material,” he says. “For guys, they see the bar scene in two different categories. Guys in their mid 20s don't want anything permanent,” as far as relationships go.
“Men can stay out of (relationships) most of their lives and they're content with that. Women have to start being concerned” about men's ambivalence, especially because of women's decreasing timeline to bear a child.
The most problematic issue for the future of our society may be the decline in the marriage rate and the increase in people living together, says Dr. Popenoe.
“Included in that concern is the percentage of women in their 30s who marry less appropriately than they would have a generation ago,” he says. “They could end up with a much older guy who already has children. When it gets desperate enough, women say they're more inclined to have a child on their own, even use a sperm donor to have a child without the guy.
The Rutgers University report indicated the marriage pool is even more shallow for African-American women.
“The number of eligible black men in these cities is even lower,” says Dr. Popenoe. “Women are better educated. Up to 60 percent of them are graduating from college so there's this big educational imbalance. Couple that with high male unemployment and a high male prison population and the (marriageable) male population looks like a bell curve. All women have to choose from are geniuses and bums. Females don't have that wide a range (of eligibility). There just aren't that many guys out there.”
Dr. Popenoe suggests women change their strategy if they want to find a mate.
“Get more guys to appreciate what a total package women have,” he says. “Women in their mid-20s should be evaluating each guy in terms of marriage prospects.”
He says if, after a couple of dates, the men don't seem willing to focus on beginning a relationship, women should be ready to move on.
“Otherwise,” he says, “they're wasting their time and timing is everything.”
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