Let me give you some context: I recently turned 29 years old, I’m a heterosexual man, and I live in the United States of America. I’ve lived in the same city, and metro area my entire life, and I know this area I live in like the back of my hand.

I actually live in a city with a population of about 200,000 people, but people around her joke, and call it the “biggest small town”. It may be a somewhat large city, but it functions like a small town. Many people here marry their high school sweethearts after high school, or their college sweethearts after their traditional college-age years. It’s very hard to find someone in this area who is 25 years old(and older), and still not married, or at least settled down in a relationship with kids. It also doesn’t help how narrow-minded, and cliquey the people in my area can be. They don’t accept many people different than them, they are often rude, and trying to find a group of friends is a nightmare. I never was popular growing up, and I’m still paying the price going into my 30s. Online dating, and dating apps are useless. I see the same 30-40 profiles on a weekly basis, and I rarely(if ever) match, despite how good my pictures are.

I was actually planning on moving somewhere else(hell, almost anywhere else) in the Summer of 2020(I can relocate with my job), but then the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, and ruined everything. I’m trying to stay positive, but after living here for nearly 30 years, nothing ever changes.

Can anyone else relate to me? Does anyone else live in a location that literally makes it hard to date, given the lack of opportunities, or the quality of the people who live there? It’s not just me saying this by the way-there are many people who say this same thing about dating in my city all over the internet.