If you’ve ever commiserated with single friends over drinks at the bar or casually scrolled past skits on social media that brutally satirize single Bay Area men, you’ll start to realize that there’s a certain irony to the San Francisco dating scene.
Despite being home to nearly a million people and attracting educated, accomplished individuals from all over the world, it seems, anecdotally at least, that everyone in the city is struggling to romantically connect with one another.
According to a dating expert who spoke with SFGATE, it turns out, there’s some truth to this. Dating here is difficult, but not for the reasons you might assume: There’s an abundance of career-driven men and women in San Francisco looking for love – the issue is that on paper, they’re all exactly the same.
A poster that says “I Love My AI Boyfriend” is affixed in a window in the Marina District on Thursday, June 25, 2026, in San Francisco. (Camille Cohen/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
Singles attend Known App’s date party at the Left Door on Thursday, June 25, 2026, in San Francisco. (Camille Cohen/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
“If you have 20 single people from the Bay Area in a room, probably 18 of them will say, ‘I work in tech. I love hiking,'” Quin Woodward Pu, a professional matchmaker at Three Day Rule, told SFGATE, adding that they all look completely identical online. This matters, especially since your dating profile is basically your resume, she explains.
It’s not “that there are no single people, men or women. It’s that you have to wade through a lot of the same stuff online to find out things like relationship goals, personality, things that actually really matter.
“Everyone loves hiking. Everyone loves, you know, Burning Man or whatever.”
These outdoorsy archetypes are so ubiquitous in San Francisco, residents who hate hiking have even consulted the internet for advice, because it seems impossible to find romance unless you have a fleece Patagonia jacket, or god forbid, a growth mindset. Other residents said that in hiking meetups with about two dozen people, the single men basically all took turns talking to the lone single, straight woman in the group. “It was sad,” they wrote.
People interact with “epod” by Michael Christian at Burning Man 2026 in the Black Rock Desert of Gerlach, Nev. (Jane Hu/For SFGATE)
Perhaps as a result, within the last several years, preparing San Francisco tech workers for the dating world has become a surprisingly lucrative business: From relationship coaches to personal stylists, there’s an emerging industry surrounding “powerful nerds” who will pay good money to shed their techie image and find romance. But because these types of clients often share the same hobbies and career backgrounds, going on dates in San Francisco can feel “repetitive,” Woodward Pu said. LA, in comparison, seems like an easier market to work with since people tend to have a variety of cultural interests.
“In both cities, shared interests can be a great starting point, but what makes someone stand out is often what sparks a real connection,” she says.
Oftentimes, she’ll conduct multiple interviews with San Francisco clients to try and weed out unique or interesting personal details to list on their profile, and if she’s trying to find a prospective husband for one of them, she’ll sometimes talk to 50 men to find just the right match. She also advises San Francisco singles to avoid “optimizing” their date by sandwiching it between meetings or phone calls during the work week.
People sit on a bench along the Clark Kerr Fire Trail, with a view of Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay Area, at the University of California, Berkeley, on Oct. 18, 2024, in Berkeley, Calif. (Jay L Clendenin/Getty Images)
The skyline of San Francisco at night. (frankpeters/Getty Images)
For the average person, though, these programs are inaccessible: Premium memberships at Three Day Rule start at $6,300 for three months and $18,500 for 12 months, which includes a limited number of dating coach sessions, photo audits and personalized feedback after dates. In 2025, the ultrawealthy even had their own tier of service. The Million Dollar Matchmaking experience – which cost $1 million and required applicants to list their net worth – promised to go above and beyond, offering services like “concierge-level date planning,” hair styling and makeup, and a 3-carat engagement ring to (hopefully) mark the end of their membership plan.
Despite the recent waves of mass layoffs in the tech sector – and the possibility that we’re trapped in an AI bubble that could burst at any moment and leave the economy in shambles – Woodward Pu isn’t concerned about business.
Before becoming a matchmaker, she sold engagement rings during periods of serious economic hardship in the U.S., and to her surprise, clients still trickled in to shop around for diamonds regardless. Lucrative startups may pop up and fall apart overnight, but one thing will always remain recession-proof. “Love,” she says, “is never going out of style.”
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This article originally published at Everyone loves Burning Man: The brutal monotony of dating in San Francisco.