you may live in an area that doesn't have a great dating market. However, you'll find that this is a common issue in virtually every metro area of the country, it's just that some places are worse than others. Relocating or looking to play in a different dating market is not necessarily a quick fix to all of your problems.
There are many reasons why an area doesn't have a great dating market. Three common ones are below...
1. Insufficient total population
2. Insufficient population of unmarried people (area commonly attracts married families)
3. Is located near a bigger city/metro area that overshadows it and attracts all the unmarried in area.
Sometimes these reasons can overlap.
Central New Jersey would generally be a combination of #2 and #3. Some of the counties that comprise Central New Jersey actually would have sufficient population. Monmouth and Ocean Counties are both over 500,000 in population but they are somewhat spread out. 500,000 people in an area is a sufficient population level on the surface. Ocean County isn't a large land area by Texas standards, but there isn't a city in that county that is densely populated. Most of Central New Jersey is people who are married and/or not looking to date new people. It is close enough to New York and Philadelphia that anyone unmarried and looking to date would choose to live in those areas but it is also far enough away from New York and Philadelphia that dating someone in those areas would be challenging. A woman who lives in New York or Philadelphia isn't going to have much of an incentive to date a man in Central New Jersey because she has so many choices available to her in her big city.
On a separate note, I think your point about relocation is valid.
In a lot of cases, relocation doesn't solve dating problems. There are times where it can work but it overall has a mixed record in solving dating problems. A lot of times a relocatee is moving to a big city where he has zero social circle. Relocations (especially repeated relocations) weaken social ties to an area. Those social ties/social connections make it easier to date in an area. Sometimes a relocation can make a difference in moving from an area with one of those factors above to a bigger city/metro area.
The modern dating market sucks, so I'd factor in things like job/career prospects, lifestyle, access to hobbies you enjoy, etc. when choosing a location to live in.
This is true. I addressed this exact issue in Post #5 on the "Observations on Dallas' Scene" thread.
Based on @Jesse Pinkman's write ups of New York City, Miami, and large state universities, I thought it would be worthwhile to write up Dallas, the city I call home. The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area (DFW) is the 4th most populated metropolitan area in the United States. Dallas and Fort...
www.sosuave.net
Dallas is one of the biggest metro areas in the USA but a rather mediocre mating market. Even with Dallas' mediocre mating market, there are appealing aspects about living in Dallas.
If one of the biggest metros in the USA is a mediocre mating market, it makes someone wonder how bad some smaller areas might be.
