The Shitty Dating Scene in Chicago

I’ve been meaning to blog about this forever, but this is the morning that I finally remembered to include it in a rant. In 2004, the National Opinion Research Center, in conjunction with the University of Chicago, conducted a study called the Chicago Health and Social Life Survey (that I’ve more appropriately retitled The Shitty Dating Scene in Chicago). The scholars interviewed 2,114 people in the city and nearby suburbs and also talked to 160 community representatives, including police, social workers, church pastors and others. Because we all know that church pastors have a far more interesting sex life than more regular folks. Seriously, though, looking at the results of this study . . . I’m here to tell you . . . it’s not good.

To paraphrase a few of the more harrowing statistics:
- Half of our lives will be spent single, or on the quest for a mate (Given my life expectancy, this should be over for me soon)
- People are increasingly more wary of marriage (ya think?!)
- Between the ages of 18 and 59, those surveyed cohabited an average of nearly four years and were married about 18. The rest of the time — an average of about 19 years — they were dating or alone, with no steady companion.
- Chicago Southsiders have a hybrid strategy in seeking partners between the transaction and relational strategies. They may have a main relationship, with hookups on the side (lots of double- and triple- dipping going on)
- People negotiate partnering in two kinds of sexual markets — transaction and relational. Transaction, being short-term hookups. Relational, being actual relationships. (I tend to meet those interested in transactions)
- Polygamy is more common among African-American men — particularly better educated black men who, presumably, have more income (what a shocking revelation!)

The full results are included in the 2004 release “The Sexual Organization of the City,” just in case anyone would like to learn more torturous discoveries.

If you’re a single Chicagoan and people in other regions tend to ask why your love life SUCKS, please direct them to this blog. So I guess this means that when I tell people that I’ll likely be single forever, I’m really not kidding.