Something that amused me

I was surfing the internet recently when I came across an article on CNN.com about the top 25 places to be single in the U.S. I am now happily married to The Girl Who Tolerates A.S.S. and have no interest in this anymore, but it caught my eye. Hoboken is apparently the # 1 place in the U.S. to be single. This is not what amused me. However, they should probably put some kind of a qualifier in the article that says it is only the number one place for singles if they either 1)Don't own a car or 2)find spending 3 + hours looking for parking relaxing and or a sexual turn on. What amused me was that apparently out of all the places they could have chosen to focus on, somehow East Orange and Newark (yes in NJ!) made the cut.

For the moment let's focus on Newark. Apparently "Both work and love can flourish..." in the city known in 1992 as the car theft capitol of the country. Also, it seems as though the murder rate has gone down slightly this year. Through the first half of 2008 there have only been 30 murders!!!!! Only 30 murders would certainly be a selling point for me if I were single! Another great thing about Newark is how much money you can make. The median family income is $39,000!!! Can you believe it? $39,000 for a whole family! Certainly a single person could be expected to make $25,000? Lot's of disposable income to go out on dates!

Now let's talk about East Orange. The home town of notable stars like Whitney Houston, David Garrard, and Althea Gibson is the "Crossroads of New Jersey," and "it's a great place for singles to cross paths." What they dont tell you is that East Orange, like newark has a bit of a crime problem. Also, according to the last census about 15.9% of families and 19.2% of the population were below the poverty line. But wait "with Elmwood and Soverel park activities, local tennis courts and plenty of community and local library events, East Orange has plenty of ways to meet up" for free. Hey this is great! The Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, and Halloween Spectacular Magic show at the EO Library sound like just the right events to meet that special someone.

The bottom line is that if you are poor and looking for love there are plenty of better places in the U.S. to be single. The Girl Who Tolerates A.S.S. and I recently went to Hawaii on our Honeymoon. There is a lot of poverty in Hawaii and if you average out all of the factors like median income, and cost of living, you will probably find that residents of most of the Hawaiian islands have similar disposable income to residents of Newark and East Orange. There is however, one BIG difference.