Through Foreign Eyes: Dating Culture in New York City
I don't have an opinion on Valentines Day. Still, picking up on the energy boiling up around me, I remembered a piece I wrote in 2023, exploring dating in New York City as a German twenty-something.
It was one of the warmer Wednesday nights of April in New York City, 2023. I was walking to my favorite restaurant through the West Village when I realized that I was in the area where I had my first “real NYC date”. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
I was still smiling as I sat down at the bar to wait for K. As he walked in, he mirrored my smile, from ear to ear. I wrapped my arms around him to hug hello. His skin was still glowing from the Tanzanian sun he soaked up weeks ago. I hadn’t seen him in three months. Funnily, that time seemed to just add to the intimacy of our rekindling. He was my first “real NYC date” upon moving to the city in August 2022.
On my second day in the city, I had escaped the apartment hunt in the 90-degree Fahrenheit concrete jungle to go to a yoga class. The same as him. Talking after class, he gave me his number. He knew a lot of people renting out their places. Three days later we went for dinner at an Italian restaurant.
I wasn’t sure if it was a date until he brought up the question: “Do you like Italian food?” he texted. Italian? That had to be a date! (I learned that on TV) It was the first time in years that I wore heels to a date; that I dressed up for a date. Because this wasn’t Freiburg or Berlin or even Tel Aviv, this was New York City.
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The year I moved to New York from Berlin, my New Year’s resolution had been not to use online dating platforms. I realized that I only used them when I was too lonely and too tired to go out. That I used them from a space of desperation, not excitement or joy. And now, arriving in this wondrous city, I realized I didn’t need the platforms. Not really. I made connections at workout classes and got talked up on the street, on the dance floor. As January 2023 doomed, I decided to make a new resolution: one date a week. Aiming to get out of my comfort zone and make myself go out. I got back on the apps and realized: in 2023, no matter how you meet, you’re most probably “online dating” one way or the other. Even though I might meet someone on an app, it could be two texts before we meet, whereas I might as well meet someone “in the wild” and text for weeks before actually getting together again irl.
As our social networks overlap with social media, aren’t all interactions, at least partly, online? Do we still need to distinguish between online dating and real-life dating? Aren’t both different sides of the same coin?
I was 27, single for five years and both my (significant) ex-boyfriends got married in the past months. I was not looking to get married, let alone settle down soon. But I knew that I wanted to, eventually. I wanted a partner and kids and a love story I could annoy them with. Eventually. But for now, I wanted to build a life in New York City. A career and a network and adventures. And dating, to me, was part of that.
On the weekend after my West Village dinner, curled up on the couch to write this piece, I talked on the phone to my father’s best friend in Idaho. H knows what it’s like to move to the United States from Germany. Moreover, what it’s like to decide to build a life in a country that isn’t the one you grew up in. He knew that I planned on staying in New York.
“For now,” I said, “who knows – maybe I'll eventually manage not to scare a guy off and we decide to move to Colorado or Israel or New Zealand or stay here.” He laughed and said, “I think New York was always a difficult place to date.” (He said it in German, the literal translation being “dating cobblestones”, which I adore) “I talked to people my age, 20 years younger than me, 20 years older than you, your generation: they all say the same.”
Why does everybody say that? Is it really harder to date in New York? Or has everyone for the past hundred years said that it’s a nightmare, which made any single person who stepped foot onto this island believe it was, doomed to create their own nightmare?
If you mention dating, especially “dating in New York City,” a knowing smile rushes over people’s faces. A flicker in their eyes. A thirst for stories, an interest, and on top of that, a knowingness. Maybe because of HBO and Netflix. Maybe because everybody talks about it. And everybody seems to – or rather, thinks to – know about it. The theories are endless:
Some say it’s hard because there are more single women than single men in this city, let alone single men interested in women. Statistics show a population of 91 unmarried men per 100 single women in the age bracket of 18-39 years. Adding to the complexity, 4.5% of the city identifies as LGBTQ+. Looking more closely, more men exclusively date men than there are women who exclusively date women, making the dating ratio worse for women.
As a result, many men know to take advantage of this ratio. And even if not, the New York pool of dating is more diverse than most other places. There’s always the chance of meeting someone better. There always might be a better match.
I wanted to believe that it’s rather the opposite: shouldn’t diversity make dating in the city easier than in other places? Is dating in New York (like everything else in this city)…competitive? Looking around as I went out for drinks with my girlfriends I realized there might be something to it. People dressed up more than I experienced in other cities. Faces that didn’t ever relax. Was that desperation in the corners of the eyes? Lonely smiles cracking open, aware that this was real-life tinder.
Everyone seemed to be bringing their “A game”, eager to stand out. It makes sense in a city that attracts the most beautiful beings. For decades New York has attracted the likes of models, actresses, and singers.
I met G through Hinge. Or was it Bumble? I met G online. The first guy I matched upon my journey to have one date a week. He grew up in Philadelphia and, like me, studied at NYU. Undergrad. A passionate musician who worked as a manager of actors. We texted sporadically, but when we did it was witty, funny, and light. We joked about the challenges of adulting. In week three of my experiment, he asked me to join him for a show at The McKittrick Hotel that same night. I was at school when he asked, I was not dressed for a date, which I used to my advantage: This is me, take me as I am, I’m not the type to waste too much energy on getting ready and choosing outfits for a date.
We met in front of the venue – The McKittrick is an old Hotel that never opened and is now being used as a stage for the immersive play “Sleep No More” as well as a Magic Show. One of the magicians is an actor friend of his. G, slightly taller than me, had warm energy. A real gentleman, he casually opened all doors for me and naturally made sure that I was the first one to step through, without being pushy. He took my coat and, once seated, ordered his favorite Whiskey for me. I felt like a lady.
I felt comfortable next to this man, sitting at a round table with 10 other people. I could relax and be a part of myself that feels feminine and adult, classy yet fun. When he walked me to the subway I asked him about his life “I sold my soul to the devil,” he told me about his job, laughing. He felt old to be single at 34. Single because many girls he went out with grew jealous of the type of women he worked and socialized with, but mostly because his job needed him to dedicate his time outside of office hours. Luckily I’m not the jealous type. And I didn’t mind joining him on work outings.
I enjoyed dressing up for our following dates. A Jazz Bar in Harlem, an Off-Broadway play followed by rooftop bars, a Broadway Musical. Spanning three months, we didn’t text much between these dates. Both busy with our lives and happy to check in every once in a while.
I didn’t mind. And that was what alarmed me. While I did enjoy our dates, our conversations, and who I was with him, I didn’t see him (metaphorically and literally) outside of our dates. I couldn’t imagine building a relationship, couldn’t imagine a life with him, or taking him into mine. He was an adventure, an event to go to every once in a while. But, unfortunately, not the partner I was – deep down – looking for.
I realized how much dating is about energy. There are millions of reasons why people choose to make New York City their home. It is magnetic for journalism and TV, for singing, acting, dancing, for art, and for fashion. But people equally come for jobs in tech, finance, or real estate. Love it or hate it, you’ll find people who agree and those who disagree. You’ll find like-minded people. Passionate, driven people — a blessing and a trippy downfall.
Even with my short experience here, I could vouch for this New York City cliché: the incredibly fast-paced lifestyle. Looking at my own life, doing about three jobs on top of school, working out at least once a day, and trying to maintain a social life while wanting to stay on top of whatever else is happening in the city is hard; to not say impossible. That can make it challenging to slow down, challenging to focus on building relationships. And isn’t that what we’re trying to do, dating?
The term ‘dating’ in the US seems to be broadly defined as meeting a person out of romantic interest. This can be within, without, or (often) as a prequel to a more exclusive romantic relationship. Saying that you’re dating someone mostly refers to doing things with someone to see if there’s potential for a more serious relationship. Like a trial period. The term equally can refer to a phase in a person’s life where they’re actively pursuing romantic relationships with different people. Dating is typically not exclusive, not serious, not committed - a relationship with fewer ties, fewer (but more confusing) feelings, and a more or less clear goal. All in all, looking for love in this country is just as confusing as back home in Germany. What a relief. The difference: despite being a prequel to a more serious relationship, dating here seems to come with way more rules.
Truth be told, I didn’t meet R for any good reason except that I needed a date that week. I was still high up in my New Year’s resolution. A Hinge match. A bar, hidden behind steel doors with no signage whatsoever, in the heart of Bushwick, playing live music. The pictures on his profile were polar opposites. On two of them, he looked like a motorbike-riding Shawn Mendes-type, on the other two like a rather insecure fifteen-year-old yet to discover the benefits of a healthy tan and visiting a gym. And that’s pretty much the vibe I got on our dates. There was something nerdy about him, I liked nerds, and also a certain coolness. We laughed and connected over our heritage.
I found comfort in cultural proximity: R grew up in France — a stone-throw from my German hometown – and, like me, with dual citizenship. He was French without an accent. I liked that. Learning that a live music bar is not the best choice for a date where you want to get to know one another, we still dove into a deep conversation. Why small talk? I want to know how you think and what makes you think; how you feel and what makes you feel.
He was fun to talk to and attentive. We texted a lot most days, depending on how much work and focus I had. New York is a lonely city and it was nice to have someone to share thoughts with, share day-to-day troubles, and spring ideas off of. Unfortunately, for some reason, my attraction to him fluctuated the same way his profile pictures did. A second date, my favorite Israeli restaurant in Williamsburg. We kissed. He wanted to come up with me, and part of me was grateful that my roommate was home. A welcome excuse. Something, I can’t pin my finger on what threw me off. “I feel like I’ve known you for longer,” he said. It’s been two dates and ten days. That’s what conversation can do for you: sometimes it intrigues people – other times it scares them off.
Compared to my other experiences, R made me realize that I enjoyed talking to someone who grew up with more similar experiences. Who also looked at the US from a different, more European understanding. The city’s nature is at its core a multicultural one. That makes it arguably harder to find someone who’s looking for the same things, and shares similar values.
When asking my German guy-friend M how he experienced dating New York girls to be different from German girls, the first thing he said was “They expect me to pay.” I had heard girls in class say that there wouldn’t be a second date if a guy didn’t pay. And it seemed that those were only the beginning of cultural differences.
In Berlin, people struck me as very emancipated when it came to approaching dates. Sometimes too emancipated, too laid back. You’d hear of women getting offended if someone would pay for dinner or open the door for them and the vibe when it came to dates was something along the lines of “I don’t want to have a forced dinner with a forced conversation.”
Most dates, especially first dates, started with getting a beer at a Späti (Berlin’s hip version of a bodega) that would be enjoyed (a) on the street corner, (b) on a walk, or (c) at a close park. From there, anything could happen. Anything but a fancy dinner that is. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Generally, my friend D, who grew up in Berlin, hit the nail on the head when speaking about her New York experiences: “Here, people tend to put more effort into a first date,” she said, “Nobody wants a stamp in Berlin. If I didn't know it was a date, I wouldn't know it was a date.” Dates in Berlin don't look like dates. And I, personally, didn’t like that. It’s not even about someone paying for my dinner (or Späti-beer). It’s about putting in and showing effort, about proving you care.
I was intrigued to find out that New York in that aspect was so vastly different. From the magic show and live music bars, fun restaurants in areas I’d never go to, and a central park walk, dance classes, and yoga sessions. Still, I didn’t hit it off with anybody. K and I developed a friendship, I told R I wasn’t interested in him, G still pops up every few weeks with a kind message asking to hang out. My other dates were one-offs or soon pivoted to friendships. I decided I’d rather be alone for longer than meet perfectly fine guys just to explain over and over that I was just not feeling It.
By March, I decided to pause my one-date-a-week rule.
I first met T at the yoga studio where I was teaching. It was the week after I decided to hit pause on the dating. I was running down the stairs and straight into him, as he came up. I didn’t even see his face but was already attracted to his posture, his way of moving, and his tone of saying sorry. We got into a conversation after class and he offered his number, as he wasn’t on social media. A week later he came to another one of my classes, we took a walk to Williamsburg’s waterfront and went for Kava – a drink we both hadn’t tried before, that was supposed to make you tipsy, without actually containing alcohol. Intrigued, we made our choices for exotic-sounding drinks and leaped into a conversation about everything and nothing, ourselves, our lives, and: dating. Rules of dating. How it sucked to have rules. How it even sucked to call it dating. He was American, born and bred on the East Coast, but called Colorado home by now. Maybe it was the Kava, maybe the yoga, maybe hormones, maybe him: I knew, I didn’t want rules with this guy. I didn’t need them.
I’d hated labels, especially on relationships, pretty much since I started questioning social constructs at around 17. T told me about friends of his who had rules about “not texting first for the first 6 weeks”, pretending to be unavailable, rules about when to kiss and when to have sex, and by how many dates what was allowed to be said or done or promised or happened. I always hated these rules. He said he did too. So we decided not to follow the rules. We met right the next day. We texted daily, we moved quickly, moved as we felt, not as society had tried to teach us to. It was amazing until it wasn’t. We moved too fast for him, he disappeared – “ghosted” me – and when I called him out on it he said it wasn’t the connection he was looking for.
Maybe my inability to know the rules is the reason some guys call me different or exciting. Moreover, the reason so many guys are overwhelmed and intimidated by me. Because without rules, who really knows what they're doing? Maybe these rules are in place for a reason.
Generally, more traditional gender roles seem to be in place here. Men pick the places, doors being held open, who texts first, who leans in for the kiss. One date drove me home in his car, another called an Uber for me. It doesn’t seem to matter where you’re from: these rules were learned, in movies and books and love songs.
No matter if in Tel Aviv or Barcelona, Berlin or New York City, I have never specifically gravitated towards Germans (or Americans) but rather found myself hanging out with – and dating – individuals from all sorts of backgrounds and nationalities. Often more than one. Especially in a city like New York, identifying with a country seems to be a paradox, a glitch of being outdated and out of place on the one hand, while providing a source of identity on the other. I found that a lot of people come here because they feel like they don’t quite fit in where they come from. I adopted a quote from my favorite coming-of-age book and lovingly called Manhattan “The Island of Lost Toys”.
But still, (or rather especially) as we leave our hometowns, sometimes crossing an ocean to do so, we often realize that we do identify with the culture we grew up in more than we thought. That it has shaped us to become who we are.
Some German clichés I can laugh off straight up front: I am not very punctual and if I sit on another date where someone acts surprised that I don’t like beer, because "Germans love their beer", I might forget my manners.
Other stereotypes hit the nail on the head "Germans are direct". I am. I speak my truth and more than that, my feelings. I’m not mean. But I’m not gonna sugarcoat and pretend I’m over the moon about things I’m not. I’ll tell you how I feel, for better or for worse. I know that that has intimidated men before. So, let’s add communication styles to the challenges of navigating dating in this city.
Another cliché: "Germans are serious" I was joking with my roommate about how she was going out every night and I was staying in on a Friday night to get work done and be productive the next day. “Well, I guess that’s why you have that job offer and I don’t!” she said, laughing. ”And why you have a boyfriend and I don’t,” I replied. Comparing myself to others (at 27), I wouldn’t call myself serious. Driven, dedicated, and sometimes a little bit too vernünftig (reasonable), yes. But: leaving a perfectly fine life in Berlin behind to chase childhood dreams in New York? I’m serious about living my life to the fullest and that might not include partying right now – ok, maybe I am more serious than others.
The last cliché I read made me laugh. "Germans are not romantic." Yes, compared to Valentines-day-Hollywood-rose-petal-romance I guess I wouldn’t call myself romantic. I had too many dates start at a Späti for traditional romance. Traditional romance, to be honest, has always made me rather uncomfortable. And I learned that was true on this continent too. But: I am romantic. I thought it to be romantic that K came to the first class I ever taught in the city to surprise me (in the studio we met) and when someone would remember my teaching schedule. I find it romantic when people remember (and respect) my eating habits or when a date kissed me at the street art on First Ave saying “kissing spot”. But one of my hinge dates playing guitar for me made me deeply uncomfortable. It’s the little, personal things that I find romantic.
Sitting across from K at my favorite Mexican place, I was reminded of how easy things were with him. And how easy things are when you’re friends. Not dating, no expectations, no thoughts about How do I look? or Can I say this? or What will he think of me?
As the food arrived I mentioned how the red one of the sauces is amazing. He looked at me, and blinked: “Which one’s the red one?” I need a second. “I forgot you’re colorblind.” That’s where romance kicks in for me: that intimacy of knowing someone’s details.
He didn’t let me pay. We walked past his place, he walked me to the train station. I gave him a long hug. I needed that hug. I’m used to the cuddles of a big family and childhood friends – all of whom an ocean away. And another one. This is New York, it gets lonely.
As I pulled away he looked at me: “Can I kiss you?”
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