- Ilinca Sipos is a marketing manager who has lived and dated in both Los Angeles and Dallas.
- She said dating in LA was more casual and fast-paced than Dallas.
Dating apps like Tinder and Hinge have made connecting with people in different places easier than ever. But there are still discrepancies in regional dating cultures, according to Ilinca Sipos, who took advantage of remote work the pandemic to live in cities across the US.
The 26-year-old marketing manager said that she found dating to be especially different between Los Angeles and Dallas. Sipos moved to Los Angeles after attending college at Georgia Tech and lived there for three years before the pandemic, she said. She worked remotely in Dallas for just under a month to explore the city and meet new people.
Sipos said that while the casual, shorter-term dates she went on in LA were fun when she first moved to the city, the more serious dating scene in Dallas was fulfilling and better for making lasting connections.
LA's casual dating scene was fun
Sipos said she's been drawn to LA's energy and excitement ever since she was a kid. When she first arrived at age 21, she enjoyed that energy as she dated in the city.
"Having the time until I really established my life to just date and try new places, and hop around the city, and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by seeing the city, meeting new people, and going on dates, it was really fun," she said.
She said she met men mainly through a mix of apps like Hinge and Bumble as well as out at bars. Dating in LA was fast-paced, she said, and she often had weeks where she went on multiple different dates.
The men Sipos dated in LA were always excited to go out and try new places and experiences, she said. These dates were fun, she said, but often didn't go anywhere after the third time meeting up.
Eventually, the casualness got old and she found herself wanting something more long-term.
"It really wasn't until probably two years in, where I was like, 'When does this end?' And then, it felt like there's a lot of people who don't ever want it to end for themselves," she said.
The men Sipos dated in Dallas were more settled
Sipos said she found that many of the men she dated in LA were like her — they wanted to stay for a few years, start their career, and then move somewhere else.
The people she dated in Dallas seemed like they wanted to stay for a long time. She said this manifested in the men she dated looking for serious relationships, having more settled careers, and putting more effort into their dates.
In LA, Sipos had so many matches on apps like Hinge that she could go on a date every night. The options in Dallas were more limited, but she said this made people more invested in one another.
"By being forced to just only go on a handful of dates just because the nature of it was a little bit more slow, it was like, 'Oh. This date was really nice, so I'll continue to lean into that,'" she said.
Along with being settled, Sipos said that the men she met in Dallas were also more traditional in the way they dated. Instead of getting a drink at a random bar, she said the men she met would often plan out a night with a few stops at their favorite places. She was also almost always picked up from her house, which she said never happened in LA.
The men in LA, Sipos said, seemed more content with being bachelors for an extended period of time.
She had to accept early on that she was often going to disagree politically with the people she dated in Dallas. But overall, her dating experience was more fulfilling because of the effort men put into their dates.
Sipos currently lives and dates in Nashville, and said at this point in her life she is interested in finding a serious relationship.