As Good As It Gets

I am not actively looking to date, but I peruse the dating sites from time to time to see what I may or may not be missing out on. Having done this in 3 different regions of the United States it's interesting the trends you find among people. New England for instance certainly lives up to it's reputation as a haven for liberals and beyond that it tends to simply be a melting pot. There's virtually no indigenous population in NE, there are so many people from somewhere else or just passing through. The DC area was full of women with jobs that had no possible description. Seriously, almost everyone I dated was a "consultant", a role that varied wildly depending on which political group or non-profit they were part of. Beyond that I found that everyone was just too damn motivated or self righteous. Still, there were a lot of transplants from other locales. Here in Austin I run across what I deem to be an inordinately large amount of women who are either from Austin or from Texas. I suppose when you take into account the fact that this state is so big and the places where I've lived before are very small, it kind of makes sense.

The thing I find concerning are the number of people who blatantly put in their profiles that they'd like to live somewhere else sometime soon. Number 1, I've always felt like shit dating people when I know I'm planning on moving sometime soon and I don't understand why anyone would advertise this. I'm a weird sort though. I like the illusion or promise of permanence even if you know it won't pan out. Number 2, why would you want to leave here? I really feel sorry for people who grow up with Austin as their baseline experience of the country. This really is as good as it gets. Ok, maybe it's as good as it gets "for me", but really there are very few places this cool in the country and most of those other places are much more expensive. I guess these people will have to learn on their own though. Maybe when you grow up with this as your baseline you can appreciate someplace like Fairfax Virginia. I certainly couldn't.