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Everyone loves Burning Man: The brutal monotony of dating in San Francisco · Best of: Features

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  Everyone loves Burning Man, the brutal monotony of dating in San Francisco.
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  Written by Ariana Bindman. This article is being read by an automated
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  voice generated by Everlett. If you've ever commiserated with single friends over
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  drinks at the bar, or casually scrolled past skits on social media
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  that brutally satirize single bay area men, you'll start to realize that
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  there's a certain irony to the San Francisco dating scene. Despite being
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  home to nearly a million people, and attracting educated, accomplished individuals from
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  all over the world, it seems, anecdotally at least, that everyone in
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  the city is struggling to romantically connect with one another. According to
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  a dating expert who spoke with S. F. Gate, it turns out
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  there's some truth to this. Dating here is difficult, but not for
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  the reasons you might assume. There's an abundance of career driven men
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  and women in San Francisco looking for love. The issue is that
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  on paper, they're all exactly the same. If you have twenty single
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  people from the Bay Area in a room, probably eighteen of them
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  will say, I work in tech. I love hiking, Quinn Woodward Pooh,
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  a professional matchmaker at Three Day Rule, told SF Gate, adding that
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  the all look completely identical online. This matters especially since your dating
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  profile is basically your resume, she explains. It's not that there are
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  no single people, men or women. It's that you have to wade
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  through a lot of the same stuff online to find out things
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  like relationship goals, personality, things that actually really matter. Everyone loves hiking.
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  Everyone loves, you know, Burning Man or whatever. These outdoorsy archetypes are
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  so ubiquitous in San Francisco. Residents who hate hiking have even consulted
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  the Internet for advice, because It seems impossible to find romance unless
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  you have a fleece Patagonia jacket, or God forbid, a growth mindset.
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  Other residents said that in hiking meetups with about two dozen people,
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  the single men basically all took turns talking to the lone, single,
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  straight woman in the group. It was sad, they wrote. Perhaps as
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  a result, within the last several years, preparing San Francisco tech workers
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  for the dating world has become a surprisingly lucrative business. From relationship
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  coaches to personal stylists, there's an emerging industry surrounding powerful nerds who
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  will pay good money to shed their techie image and find romance.
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  But because these types of clients often share the same hobbies and
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  career backgrounds, going on dates in San Francisco can feel repetitive, Woodward
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  Pooh said. LA in comparison seems like an easier market to work
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  with since people tend to have a variety of cultural interests. In
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  both cities, shared interests can be a great starting point, but what
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  makes someone stand out is often what sparks a real connection, she
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  says. Oftentimes she'll conduct multiple interviews with San Francisco clients to try
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  and weed out unique or interesting personal details to list on their
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  profile, and if she's trying to find a prospective husband for one
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  of them, she'll sometimes talk to fifty men to find just the
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  right match. She also advises San Francisco singles to avoid optimizing their
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  date by sandwiching it between meetings or phone calls during the workweek.
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  For the average person though, these programs are inaccessible. Premium memberships at
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  three day rule start at six thousand three hundred dollars for three
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  months and eighteen thousand five hundred dollars for twelve months, which includes
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  a limited number of dating coach sessions, photo audits, and personalized feedback
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  after dates. In twenty twenty five, the ultra wealthy even had their
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  own tier of service. The million dollar matchmaking experience, which cost one
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  million dollars and required applicants to list their net worth, promised to
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  go above and beyond, offering services like concierge level date planning, hair
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  styling and make up, and a three carat engagement ring to, hopefully,
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  mark the end of their membership plan. Despite the recent waves of
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  mass layoffs in the tech sector and the possibility that we're trapped
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  in an AI bubble that could burst at any moment and leave
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  the economy in shambles. Woodward Pooh isn't concerned about business. Before becoming
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  a matchmaker, she sold engagement rings during periods of serious economic hardship
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  in the US, and to her surprise, clients still trickled in to
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  shop around for diamonds regardless. Lucrative startups may pop up and fall
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  apart overnight, but one thing will always remain recession proof. Love, she
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  says, is never going out of style.