Singles in NY have no excuse for not meeting people. Step out of your apartment building, and you're instantly surrounded by hundreds of bustling commuters, tourists, and local residents. Sure, meeting good people can be tough, but that's true in any city, not just New York. Still, with eight million folks calling New York City home, there's no better place throughout the entire country to find love at any hour of the day or night.

For all its energy, though, New York City can be quite a lonely place. The reputation that New Yorkers have earned for their rudeness and impatience isn't without some good reason, so the lonely-hearted are often justified in feeling a sense of perpetual solitude. If people barely have time to stop and smile, how in the world are you expected to get two minutes to make a lasting impression and maybe win a date?

The Plight of Singles in NY

Singles in NY are therefore forced to rely largely on friends to help broker meetings and make introductions. This can be a highly effective strategy since you already appear to pass muster with the point person, whom you ostensibly trust. But it can be so challenging to meet good matches in New York that an eligible bachelor or bachelorette is likely to be snapped up by your single friends before he or she ever it makes it to your door. This is why it's best to look to your "coupled" pals to hook you up.

If you've already exhausted your own personal network and you simply can't join any more yoga classes, cooking workshops, or speed-dating circuits, it may be time to go where the rest of the singles world has ventured: online. Meeting people online is exponentially more effective in New York than it is in other locales, not just because there are more people, but because they're all stacked on top of one another. This means finding love in the apartment below yours or just across the street is far more likely. Going from uptown to downtown rarely takes more than an hour, so distance ceases to be a legitimate excuse.