No ring, no problem

Swipe Right on Portland: City Ranks 10th in US for Singles

The City of Roses maintains its dating dominance.

By Zoe Sayler January 5, 2024

Portlanders meeting cute

Not finding love, and worried that it’s a you problem? Make your way to Portland, Oregon, which just landed near the top of a list of best cities for singles. Again.

Portland ranks 10th out of 182 US cities in WalletHub’s annual rankings of cities’ friendliness toward singles. The rankings calculate affordability (how much one shells out for housing, a cocktail, or a two-person meal), recreation (parks and coffee shops per capita, nightlife) and, most of all, dating possibilities (population share of singles, gender balance, Google searches for “Tinder”).

Altogether, the rankings gauge opportunity. “If a city has a high population of singles and is packed with activities that you’ll enjoy, then you’ll have a better chance to meet someone with similar interests and can go on higher-quality dates,” says WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe.

The best city for any given single centers around personal interests, say WalletHub’s experts. If you love country music, for example, you might find more like-minded suitors in Nashville (88th) than San Francisco (12th), even though the latter ranks higher. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a city with more opportunities for hyper-specific romantic bonding than Portland, with its social groups for everyone from young introverts to “lesbians of a certain age,” niche meetup spots like women’s sports bar the Sports Bra, and a decades-long dedication to keeping things weird.

Our promiscuous town has been knocked down a few pegs since last year’s fifth-place ranking (and 2018’s fourth-place ranking), likely due to rising cost of living. And we question the decision to continually hand our frigid Seattle friends the blue ribbon. Called “America’s Worst City to Find Love” by The Great Love Debate Podcast thanks to its “aggravated women and socially awkward men,” the Emerald City nonetheless beat out Vegas and Denver for WalletHub’s top spot this year despite ranking 174th of 182 for affordability—meaning that those dates are only fun if a techy high earner is treating.

Meanwhile, Vancouver, Washington, ranked 129th—confirming our long-held belief that the grass truly is greener on this side of the Columbia.

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