This week, Forbes.com made a colossal error and somehow calculated “Denver-Boulder” as the No. 1 city for single people in America for a second year in a row.
Someone should inform them that Denver and Boulder are two cities, 30 miles and a world apart.
That they lumped the People’s Republic of Boulder, a mecca for wanna-be hippies who are into meditation, with Denver, a city known as “a nice place to raise children,” shows how little they know about the region.
Magazine rankings are often flawed because the criteria used are subjective. What they really mean is this is a great place for dating if you are a single, heterosexual person in your 20s and focused on rock climbing or pubs.
That’s the conclusion you come to after studying Forbes’ methodology.
They base their ranking on six categories: the number of single people over age 15, the cost of living, the number of creative jobs, and the number of bars, nightclubs, sports teams and performing-arts venues.
Part of their cost of living analysis is the price of a pizza and a six-pack.
That makes it clear the study is skewed toward kids stumbling out of college.
Single people in their 30s look at these rankings and wonder, “Were the people who were doing this on crack?”
They might as well have blindfolded a man, twirled him in front of a map of the U.S., and shouted, “Point!” Boise might’ve been a better choice.
The truth is what is considered a great city for singles is as varied as the number of single people out there.
If I were doing the ranking, I’d be looking at cultural events (sorry, Broncos games don’t count), the number and variety of concerts in town, the number of salsa clubs and art galleries, the number of independent coffeehouses, and the quality of sushi, Indian and other ethnic restaurants.
Those are my criteria. I’m sure others have their own.
Boston was No. 2 on the Forbes list and having lived there 6 1/2 years I’d say it’s a better city for dating because it’s a got a huge population of intellectual men of color.
The last guy I dated there was a tall, handsome Dominican man who graduated from Howard University (the black man’s Harvard) who amazed me with his analysis of national and international politics.
My group of single female friends say that if we were into frat-boy types who wear football T-shirts on a Friday night and don’t read the newspaper, Denver would be a gold mine. Ditto if we wanted to date marathoners or mountain climbers.
No. 3 is San Francisco on the Forbes list, but for gay men it probably would rank higher than Denver. Atlanta is No. 6 but if you’re an African-American woman looking for a black man you’d have a better chance there than here.
While people often discount magazine surveys, this one is hard to shake. People seem to have an emotional reaction to it. Last year, I interviewed a bunch of people who seemed offended by Denver-Boulder’s No. 1 status.
That’s because if it’s No. 1 it makes people who live here wonder: If this area is such a hotbed for single people, why can’t I find someone?
It’s bad enough that Mom is hinting maybe the problem is you. Now we have a survey that proves her right.
In her piece that accompanied the ranking, Leah Hoffman writes, “Denver daters are grumpy.” She quips that “a low cost of living, a host of cultural options and the beauty of the nearby Rocky Mountains aren’t enough to satisfy them.”
She ends her article with “Get out there! And stop whining! You don’t know how good you have it.”
With advice like that, who needs a nagging mom?
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
