My date showed up peacocking, in a silk shirt, with dice-themed rings and necklaces, and a very expensive-looking cowboy hat (odd, since he was from the east coast). He rattled off some obviously rehearsed flirty lines and some frankly odd beliefs about gender roles, then—when I was ready to bolt for the exit—whipped out a pack of gold playing cards.
“Let me show you a trick,” he said. “If I win, we’ll go grab a drink at Valkyrie.” I let him do his trick and then I bolted anyway. I went home, sighed, and deleted Bumble for maybe the fourth time since moving to Tulsa.
Sure, dating is difficult anywhere. But if you’ve ever dated in Tulsa, you, like me, may have thought: is everyone here already married? Are all the sane single people hiding in a bunker? If so, where is that bunker? Forget it, I’m going to buy some land with my friends and start a commune.
Even though I’ve had a couple of relationships in Tulsa, after enough lackluster and comically bad dates, I began to worry that “my person” just wasn’t here. I’ve lived and dated in places like Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, and while those places all presented their own unique dating challenges (urban sprawl, flakiness, and shallowness in Los Angeles, for example), the challenge in Tulsa was a lack of viable options. As a woman in my early 30s, that was a problem. I wondered why I was struggling so much, and I thought the smaller dating pool might be playing a part.
How's The Water In Tulsa's Dating Pool?
I know I’m not alone in my feelings of frustration when it comes to dating in Tulsa. When you go by the numbers, it can be a challenging place in which to date, especially if you’re new to town, or on the north side of 30. It’s a medium-sized city in a state where a lot of people feel the social pressure to pair off when they’re young. The median age of marriage is about two years below the national median, and that generally means fewer people on the dating scene. Meanwhile, our divorce rate is relatively high as well. I’ve heard people joke that the best place to meet someone new here is outside the divorce lawyer’s office.
I talked to more than 20 people about dating in Tulsa for this story, and while a few said they didn’t think it was necessarily worse than it was anywhere else, many weren’t happy with the scene. Women reported seeing limited good options, and talked about stepping away from dating to focus on themselves—while a few guys reported similar complaints.
I sympathize with how hard it can be to find the right match; I can count on both hands how many times I’ve gotten dolled up for events, spent 20 minutes talking to a guy, and felt a good connection, only for him to casually mention his wife and kids. My girlfriends were all reporting the same thing. At a certain point, you could be forgiven for simply leaving town.