Amaya Savoy-Easton, a single 26-year-old social media coordinator, is clear on what she wants. Her near-term goals include visiting 30 countries before she turns 30, investing in a rental property in San Marcos, and getting an LLC for her freelance business. So when she asked a would-be suitor what he wanted out of life, and he said a house, she pressed him for more details.
“I guess I also want a TV,” he offered.
She was speechless. “I wasn’t looking for a five-year plan,” she explained. “I was looking for someone who has taken the time to ask themselves what they want and don’t want in their life.”
Both heterosexual and queer people have familiar refrains around dating in Austin: Dates showing up drunk, dates not using soap, dates who just want to “have fun” and “chill” and don’t check for any sort of compatibility.
Austin’s dating scene gets mixed reviews compared to other cities. In 2018, Match.com ranked Austin singles the worst-behaved in the country, finding the men are 549% more likely to ghost than single men in other cities (a 2025 survey from NumberBarn ranked Austin 4th for ghosting). Austin Monthly called dating in Austin “cursed.” On the other hand, in 2025, WalletHub named Austin the 6th-best place to be single in the country, and Zumper ranked it 10th, based on factors such as single population, affordability, social opportunities, and job-market strength.
So what’s the deal with dating in Austin? Is it the actual worst or is there hope? To fully investigate this story, I talked with singles in Austin and those who left for greener pastures (they are all happier, by the way). I talked to the woman in charge of choosing Austin’s most eligible singles. I talked to dating event planners, a dating coach, and a therapist. All to determine: Is dating in Austin as awful as it feels?
Two general complaints emerged: life in Austin is simply too fun to be in a relationship, and Austin is the city of Peter Pans. But that’s not quite the full story. The further I pressed, the more I learned that what makes the city so lively, and home to those who buck constructs of “growing up,” is also what makes Texas’ capital city a great place to meet people.
So don’t swear off dating just yet — I also found plenty of reasons to hope, and expert advice to make dating more successful.
Problem #1: Austin is too fun
The biggest problem facing Austin daters appears to be that the city is too fun. Everyone I talked to for this article — including those who moved away for a better dating scene — praised Austin as a city: the temperatures that facilitate being outside, the accessible nature, the endless possibilities for entertainment on any given day. “Austin offers so much community, activities, hobbies, arts, and culture,” said AnaMichele Babyak, the cofounder of Hidden Gems Dating, an in-person dating event. “You can have a really full life without feeling the need to commit and settle down with one person.”
“Everyone is so friendly here. You can talk to people at restaurants, at bars, you can go walk the lake and talk to people,” said Saine Wong, a chef who was named one of Austin’s Most Eligible Singles in 2023.
However, there is a downside to our temperate, margarita-filled music mecca.
“When you do actually start talking to someone, you’re still surrounded by so many options. People come to Austin to have fun. I don’t think Austin is a place where people come to find love,” Wong said.
While some 14,000 people moved to Austin in 2024, many of them don’t consider the move permanent. Taylor Prinson, a 32-year-old photographer who left her native Austin for Paris in 2024, found the city’s tech scene attracted young, attractive people making good money who just wanted to have fun.
“They wanted to play, and Austin was their playground,” she wrote in an email.
Others have noticed a change in the Austin dating pool.
“The people that are moving [to Austin] are not the people that I’m trying to date,” said Tré Carden, a 35-year-old musician and designer. “Everyone’s a little more Joe Rogan-y than they used to be.”
However, it’s hard to imagine that having too many options to go out, have fun, and possibly meet someone is actually a bad thing for dating life. Blaine Anderson, a matchmaker and dating coach, tells her clients the best way to find a relationship is to expand their social circle by doing things they want to do.
“The best businesspeople aren’t clearing their calendars to participate in random networking events; the most attractive singles aren’t showing up at random singles events,” she wrote. “The best thing you can do if you’re single is spend time in places where the people you want to meet spend time.” That could mean joining a sports league, a queer book club or hiking club, or a monthly game night.
In-person dating events are also on the rise, which is a boon for local businesses as opposed to our app overlords. Allison Welsh, director of operations at Stargazer Bar, told me the bar’s singles nights are some of its most well-attended events.
“There’s something refreshing about being in a room with real humans, having real conversations, and not needing a perfectly curated profile to start talking to someone,” she wrote.
In the heterosexual app experience, women often complain about too many matches and guys about too few. These dynamics are usually reversed at in-person events. Wong often struggles to fill the men’s spots for his singles dinners.
“Women do show up a lot stronger than men when it comes to all these events,” he said. “I think men are more nervous and don’t want to get their egos hurt.”
But that means the men who put in the effort to attend in-person events have an abundance of single women to talk to. Babyak estimates that at Hidden Gems events, people often leave with two matches after meeting 20 people.
It is worth noting that Austin can feel more limiting to the queer community, as there’s not a “gayborhood” and only a handful of gay bars. But there’s definitely an appetite for queer single events. I attended Chaotic Singles: Sapphic Edition, which had over 150 attendees, a line out the door to get in, and was so packed that the venue opened its garage doors, and people wearing short skirts and heels spilled out into the 40-degree weather. However, the stereotype that the queer dating pool can be shallow also played out at the event: out of five people I talked to, three had exes also present at the event.
Problem #2: The Peter Pan thing
The most pervasive complaint of dating in Austin is that there’s a culture of people who want to shirk responsibility and act young forever — aka, Peter Pans.
The stereotype isn’t new, though it may have looked different over the years. Austin has had a reputation as “the velvet rut” since the 1970s — a place where an easy, fun life makes the years and decades slip away without any change in behavior or priorities. In that era, it may have looked like musicians refusing to get a day job or leave the city to go on tour.
To be clear, Peter Pans aren’t necessarily gendered — lack of ambition or strong interests was a common complaint I heard at the sapphic dating event. But Peter Pan accusations are most strongly hurled at men.
Austin Monthly publishes an annual list of Austin’s most eligible singles, and editor Madeline Hollern estimates that she gets hundreds more applications from women than men. “It felt like the women who were being nominated spoke multiple languages, traveled the world, sat on the boards of nonprofits, started their own companies. And the men…bake a mean ziti,” she told me.
And what do the Peter Pans have to say for themselves?
During my interview with Carden, the musician and designer, he spoke about wanting to seek joy, and lamented that potential male love-interests didn’t pay attention to him if he didn’t have a high-paying career. When I pointed out that he might be a Peter Pan, he said, “I’m the Peter Pan for sure. I sought out people that were stable, focused on their futures, and more grounded.” However, Carden was in two long-term relationships during his tenure in Austin — a seemingly un-Peter Pan move.
Anderson, the matchmaker and dating coach, is skeptical that the Peter Pan mentality is more common in Austin than elsewhere, stating that residents of any city with a large population of affluent single men will complain about this.
“At least within my social circles, the single guys in Austin seem to be more oriented toward finding long-term partners and starting families than the guys in the major coastal cities,” she said in an email.
Hollern, the Austin Monthly editor, also doesn’t think Austin is rife with Peter Pans.
“I’m sure somebody could look at me and say I’m a Peter Pan,” she said. “I’m 40. I’ve prioritized my career and having fun. It’s wonderful if getting into a relationship isn’t your sole reason for existence. So I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.”
Furthermore, who can blame the Peter Pans? Who wouldn’t want to seek out joy and avoid burdensome responsibilities? While almost every woman I interviewed complained about Peter Pans, they all understood the appeal.
Christina Bedos, a 37-year-old marketing professional, told me, “I would love to just feel joy every day in my life. But women have a ticking time bomb, and we have to make choices.”
To extend her timeline, Bedos froze her eggs but ultimately left Austin, frustrated by the dating scene. She found a partner in her new city within a few months.
After reporting this story, I remain unconvinced that the Peter Pan mentality is more pervasive in Austin than elsewhere. Rather, it seems to be a pervasive stereotype reflecting evolving priorities in society.
“The way I think about [Peter Pans] is it means that people are trying to be their most authentic selves,” said Heather Teel, a therapist and dating coach. “Austin can attract people that want to be creative and not necessarily follow society’s norms or just go along with what’s supposed to happen. They’re not so focused on getting married because they’re focused on whatever it is they’re creating or their career. The things that feel good for them to do in their life.”
Is Austin dating good, actually?
So, the dating pool in Austin is likely not worse than elsewhere, and it’s a fun and friendly city to be in. This is good news — and it means there are ways to tap into a more enjoyable dating experience in Austin.
Experts say a good starting point is spending less time on apps — or at least vanquishing endless chatting in favor of meeting up.
“Apps can be useful ways to meet people, but they’re better at creating the illusion that you’re making progress toward finding your person,” Anderson said.
Mariam Parker, a 45-year-old executive director, previously avoided matching with men in the military. When she started treating app dating as an experiment to see what kinds of people she clicked with, she met her current boyfriend, a military man.
Dating apps also pair people who will likely never see each other again, so they face no social consequences for behaving badly. One woman told me about a date who, unprompted, got down on all fours in the bar and started snorting like a pig. I wonder: Would he have done so if he had to keep seeing her at recreational soccer every week?
If you’re looking to date or find a relationship, go out and enjoy Austin more. Not only do you get a better sense of compatibility in person, you also expand your social circle. So, even if you don’t get a romantic vibe from anyone at your new run club, they might bring their friends to your post-run brunch, and you hit it off with one of them.
That said, in-person events do involve asking people out in person — which one survey found 45% of Gen Z men have never done. To be fair to men, asking someone out is intimidating in an era when any social misstep could end up on the internet. But, this old-fashioned method still gets the most praise from the experts — and women can do it, too. Wong advises guys to “just show up.” (Don’t forget — studies have found that doing something scary together increases attraction.)
“Accept that you will get rejected, a lot,” Anderson advised. “Think of it like the toll you pay to meet someone high-quality in person. Remember that if you’re being respectful and friendly, and someone you approach doesn’t want to chat with you, that’s their problem, not yours.”
Teel advises that the key to enjoying dating again is to shift away from an outcome-focused approach and redefine success. Instead of only considering a dating event successful if you meet someone, which is based on an external factor you have no control over, consider it a success if you learn something about others or yourself, and feel proud of yourself for showing up.
“It’s really hard to want something and just allow ourselves to move towards it without having it yet,” Teel said. “Our brains get scared and start saying things like, ‘What if it doesn’t happen?’ or ‘How do I need to work harder?’ So ask, what are the feelings I’m actually having? Can I feel those feelings? And what thoughts might I need to reconstruct? For example, saying, ‘This just doesn’t exist in Austin.’ Ultimately, there are really good people in Austin.”
To that end, I’d like to offer everyone a little hope. People fall in love in all sorts of ways. Hollern told me that putting together a list of Austin’s most eligible singles makes her optimistic about the dating scene.
After giving up on dating timelines, I had a child on my own — and 18 months later, I met someone on Tinder. And one shy woman at the sapphic dating event told me she was newly out and hadn’t dated at all in Austin — but when the games began inside, she was cozied up on a picnic table with a partner, deep in conversation, holding hands.
While dating in Austin may feel discouraging, it’s likely not a problem unique to this city. Some people are certainly served by a change of location — and have even made partners they’ve fallen in love with elsewhere. But if you feel ready to give up on the Austin dating scene — try talking to someone first.