As a former social scientist, one of the coolest parts of nomad life is seeing the difference in girls in each new place through dating apps.

When I switched my location to Raleigh, I noticed evident changes in the dating profiles. More mountain pictures, more graduate students, many people strangely obsessed with Costco, but maybe most surprisingly, an incredible amount of pictures with pets, talking about animals, and veterinarians. 

I was perplexed by this pet obsession until my cousin told me NC State has one of the largest veterinary programs in the country. They have cheers at the football games, just listing out different kinds of animals. Certainly odd but also endearing.

It certainly is more endearing to me than the vast quantity of Orlando girls whose only requirement for a relationship was a guy who would take them to Disney. If I just liked Disney, I probably would have found a wife ages ago in Orlando. But, Alas, Every time I have gone to Disney, I felt like they should have paid me for the extremely hot and overcrowded experience of waiting in 2-hour lines to get on a ride that would likely break down.  

The cool part about Orlando is people come from all over. It’s rare to meet anyone who grew up in Orlando.

Jax girls love the Beach. I don’t blame them. I don’t know many other cities with such a nice beach area. There were also many pictures of girls holding fish, which I thought was a cliche only for dudes. There were also way more locals, born and raised.

However, there are some dating profile universals. “Someone who can make me laugh,” “Someone to travel the world with,” “Just feed me Tacos and Margs.” These must be deep feminine psychological truths because they are everywhere!

Despite the fascinating sociological research, I have basically given up on dating apps due to the other universal, Fatigue. The only reason I have stayed on them is because I have met some great girls online in the past. However, it seems to be getting harder due to the emotional exhaustion that comes with the endless scrolling, matching, texting, and first dates that never seem to work out.

There are many other problems with dating apps I may dig into in a later post. Meeting people IRL is much more enjoyable, which I just learned is internet slang for In Real Life which has gotten so popular that in real life people say In Real Life to refer to normal things that happen in life. Yes, I feel old.

As such, here are some of the cool people I met in Jacksonville.

Courtney and Kyle, friends I made in improv class:

Here’s my beach volleyball team:

And my Airbnb roommate trying to improve his CV to get into Residency Programs.