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Do You Date Outside Of Your Borough?

Jen Carlson

Published Jun 14, 2011

Modified Jun 14, 2011

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Jen Carlson

Published Jun 14, 2011

Modified Jun 14, 2011

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Remember that episode of Friends (sorry) where Ross is dating a girl in Manhattan and a girl in Poughkeepsie? He says, "I can’t decide between the two of them. Y’know the one from Poughkeepsie, even though she’s a two hour train ride away, is really pretty, really smart, and a lot of fun. But this other girl, well, she lives right uptown. Y’know she’s, well she’s just as pretty, I guess she’s smart, she’s not fun." (To which Chandler Bing retorts, "How can she be great if she’s from Poughkeepsie? That joke would’ve killed in Albany.") Okay, so the website How About We is wondering if people will date out of their own borough. Yep, something else to fear in the already harsh world of New York City dating: being "geographically undesirable." We took an informal poll of friends and here's what we found out:

A 30-something-year-old male from Williamsburg: "Yes, i would... though I think outside of Manhattan and Brooklyn would be challenging."
An early 20s female from East Williamsburg: "Yes, within reason. Williamsburg to downtown Manhattan. If I really liked someone I would make the effort to travel to them but I wouldn't be happy about it, I would prefer someone close. I wouldn't be psyched to date someone in Park Slope, from Williamsburg."
Another 30-something male from Williamsburg: "Jesus, of course. Then again... she'd have to be pretty hot to make me schlep to Staten Island or the Bronx. And I once did let something drop with a cute girl who lived in Hoboken."
A 20-something female from Manhattan: "I mean probably not Queens, The Bronx, or Staten Island (actually, definitely not).. and if he was from Brooklyn then he'd have to be from a place that's kinda easily accessible or has to be someone who is mobile enough that he would spend a lot of time in Manhattan."
An early 20s female from Prospect Heights: "The person I've been dating lives four blocks away, but he's probably moving to another neighborhood, and I'm like, ehhh. But I'd like to think I would date someone outside of my own borough."
A mid-20s male from the Lower East Side: "Of course!"

And finally, an(other) early 30s male from Williamsburg told us: "What are my options, like...is there a 'yes, but the girl has to be completely fucking awesome'? It's just hard, because it's all relative." Going above and beyond, he then sent us this chart with "distance" on one axis, and "attraction/interest" on the other:

So where do you stand on dating outside of your borough—tell us in the poll below, and here's another way at looking at it from a Manhattanites point of view, putting distance traveled in relation to how good looking the person is:

Tagged

borough

chart

dating

graph

poll

Jen Carlson

Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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