Have you tried online dating? I know that sounds silly, but it might help optimize your search for a partner who shares your interests.

> It requires living in nice rural communities where you will never, ever meet a new person, though, so if you start it single you'll stay that way forever.

I live 15 minutes from the beach in the Tampa area. Low cost of living area.

Online dating still requires you to be in a location with an extremely large population of single women. It doesn't matter if you visit the one bar or OKCupid if you've already asked out and been rejected by the only three eligible people in your zip code. You need a large enough population to successfully find a match, and the only place to find large populations of single women are major cities. (And a tiny fraction of cities at that--I chose poorly here and very much regret it.)

Basically, when it comes to dating it doesn't matter if you live in Issaquah (15 miles from Seattle) or Othello (180 miles from Seattle.) In neither case would anyone who lives in Seattle be bothered to go out on a date with you.

With respect, I'm struggling a bit with your last paragraph.

I live in Kirkland and I'm dating a woman who lives in West Seattle. We're older, but it's not like we're people who couldn't easily date other people who lived closer if we wished to do so.

I wish you success.

Move to DC. The amount of single woman is crazy.

Yeah, I know that now. Too late to move at this point, I have two dogs , own a home in the city, have an established career...moving would be incredibly expensive and risky. Going back to any previous move I made in the past, I'd never consider anything other than DC, New York, or Austin (perhaps a few others in the South, but I don't know the area too well.) Anywhere on the West Coast is a cripplingly bad decision.

As someone who lives in DC and always wanted to live in a west coast city, if only for a little while, I wonder if this is "grass is greener" syndrome or maybe DC really is as good as it gets?

I did not enjoy NYC. Too dirty, too busy, too crowded.

The weather is great, but it's a dude ranch, and theres not many European-style city amenities.

"It requires living in nice rural communities where you will never, ever meet a new person, though..."

Or Pittsburgh. Note where it ranks in the list of highest home ownership and cheapest rents.

(I live here, and there aren't as many tech jobs as SF or NYC, but maybe more than you would expect.)

You missed the point: the city is necessary for finding a partner, not a job. Remote working, at a bare minimum, lets you be employed anywhere. You need a critical mass to have any chance of dating (unless you're extraordinarily desirable, or already have one when making the choice of where to live, like the comment I responded to.)

I live in Denver, in a house I paid $135k for earlier this decade (now completely paid off), on about the budget the GP post mentioned. It's not even remotely hard to meet people here, and I don't need to burn cash like crazy.