Springtime means time for love, but what’s the best way to find someone to date? Does on-line dating work? Local residents talked about their bad dates and what it’s like to be single in Hoboken or Jersey City.
Sara, 25, is a young professional who works as a fashion designer in Manhattan and has been living in Hoboken for the past two years. Sara said she has met a lot of great guys in Hoboken. One time, she and a young man took a romantic walk across the Williamsburg Bridge, then had dinner at a brewery in Brooklyn.
“It’s so much more enjoyable and exciting when someone makes an effort to do something out of the ordinary,” Sara said. “It gets so boring always going out to ‘Grab a drink.’ ”
But not everything that begins well ends the same way.
“There are a lot of great guys in Hoboken,” Sara said, “but there is about one degree of separation between them. Chances are you will see them again, whether you want to or not.”
Joan, 26, has been living in Hoboken for four years and finds that Hoboken isn’t big enough for an ex.
“I dated this one guy for about a month,” Joan said, “and would always randomly run into him rather than making plans. It got really annoying, because it felt like he was stalking me. Hoboken is big enough, but being that I only go to the same five bars, it makes sense.”
Joan thinks that daters need to get out of their comfort zone and make an effort to meet new people.
“If you move around enough, there are enough people in Hoboken for a thriving dating scene,” Joan said. “I think people need to find other activities to participate in like sports teams and clubs. Drunken meetings don’t usually pan out for the long term.”
Both Sara and Joan said that they had never tried dating on-line and wouldn’t do so in the near future.
“I don’t feel like on-line dating is normal enough for people my age yet,” Sara said. “I feel like it works a lot better for people who are a little older.”
The perils of on-line dating
Jessica is a young professional living in Manhattan. Before meeting her boyfriend, she had been out looking for love in Hoboken a number of times, but found dating in Hudson County isn’t always about finding prince charming.
“Most guys aren’t looking for relationships if you meet them at bars,” Jessica said. “They’re more interested in the here and the now.”
Jessica eventually found her boyfriend through mutual friends, a dating technique she highly recommends.
But she also said she had spent time on-line to find her perfect date.
“One time, I went out with a guy I met on eHarmony, and he looked nothing like his photo,” Jessica said. “It was absolutely miserable. He spent the entire time talking about materialistic things he could offer a woman. I was turned off entirely.”
Jessica said that on-line dating can encourage people to lie about themselves, and that once people meet face to face, they usually have very little in common.
“Guided questions only give you prompted answers,” Jessica said, “which doesn’t reveal a whole lot about a person. I think open communication is the only way to go.”
Tara of Jersey City agreed. Although she met two of her past boyfriends on-line, she said that a lot of guys often lie about their height.
“I’m five-foot-eight and I round up to five-foot-nine,” Tara said. “If your profile says you’re six feet and you’re shorter than me, something is wrong.”
However, on-line dating can work for busy people, Tara said. She recommends dating services like OK Cupid and Lavalife, but not the overly commercialized Match.com or eHarmony.
“They’re great for people who are really busy and don’t have the time to go out and meet new people,” she said. “You can go on after class, or at work.” Tara said she met a lot of great guys and ended up spending entire evenings talking over drinks.
But even Tara had her share of on-line dating horror stories.
“I was supposed to meet this guy in New York City,” Tara said, “and he shows up and hour late. I was sitting down reading the paper and having a drink. He said he didn’t want to drink because if he couldn’t get messed up [drunk], what was the point. The date was going nowhere, and he offered to take me to the train station. Then, he started making jokes about Jersey girls: ‘What’s the difference between garbage and a Jersey girl?’ he said. ‘At least the trash gets taken out once a week.’ He was such a [expletive deleted].”
‘Come here often?’
Mike, 24, is a bartender in Hoboken and has been living in the city for over two years. Mike said that working at a bar is a great way to meet new people. But he warned that there are those “girls who are only looking for a free drink.”
Lea, originally from Long Beach Island, moved to Hoboken two weeks ago and is working at a bar in town while looking for a job in the fashion industry. Single and looking, Lea had a number of good and bad dating stories from Hudson County.
“He said he wanted a Batman tattoo on his chest.” – Lea, of Hoboken
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Lea also had her share of terrible dating experiences. Once, she even escaped from a horrible blind date by jumping out a bathroom window.
“The guy turned out to be younger than me and really immature,” Lea said. “He said he wanted a Batman tattoo on his chest. The date got worse and worse, so I went to the bathroom and snuck out an open window.”
Sean Allocca can be reached at current@hudsonreporter.com