A new study from personal finance company WalletHub named Texas as the second-best place for single adults to live.
The report, titled “Best & Worst States for Singles (2024),” aimed to list the most and least singles-friendly places in America with the most romantic holiday — aka Valentine’s Day — swiftly approaching.
To conduct its study, WalletHub utilized data from several sources — including the U.S. Census Bureau, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Google Ads, TripAdvisor and more — to compare the 50 U.S. states on three major categories: “Dating Opportunities,” “Romance & Fun” and “Dating Economics.”
Within each major category were 29 key metrics that helped determine the “dating-friendliness” ranking of each state, including the amount of single adults, average beer and wine costs, number of attractions and nightlife options per capita, to name a few.
The Lone Star State earned its second-place finish on the list because it ranked fourth in the “Romance & Fun” category, on account of it offering the most movie theaters and restaurants per capita in the country, giving plenty of romantic date options for hopeful singles.
Texas also scored highly in the “Dating Opportunities” category, ranking seventh among U.S. states as a result of having above-average mobile (18th) and online dating (21st) opportunities. Texas also had the distinction of finishing better than average in the “Dating Economics” field (19th), with its residents holding the 10th best median annual household incomes in the nation.
Florida was the only state to finish ahead of Texas in the study, with areas like California, New York and Pennsylvania rounding out the top five.
As for the five less-than-ideal states for single people to find love in were West Virginia, North Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska and Kentucky, according to the study.
“Finding love can be tough, but being in the right place can contribute to a successful relationship,” said WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe. “The best states are ones that provide a wide variety of venues for dates and have a large population of singles who are actively looking for a partner. The unfortunate tradeoff is that dating usually isn’t cheap in states that provide these ideal conditions.”
