Four years after the end of HBO’s “Insecure,” Issa Rae, the show’s creator, revealed that she doesn’t believe Los Angeles is a good dating city. In fact, she admits that she “knowingly” romanticized it on her show.
The series, which ran from 2016 to 2021, depicted a Los Angeles that was filled with handsome and successful men of color in pursuit of the show’s Black female leads. Jay Ellis, Kendrick Sampson and Alexander Hodge were series regulars, while some of the guest stars included the rapper Aminé and the actor Sterling K. Brown.
“I was like, ‘I’m deceiving people,’” Ms. Rae said in a recent interview with Bustle, offering a blunt assessment of the dating prospects in a city of four million people. “This is what I want it to be, but, sorry, it’s not.”
Onscreen depictions can shape how a city is perceived by an entire generation. (Who knows how many women have moved to New York City at least in part because of its glamorous portrayal on “Sex and the City”?) But a city’s reputation doesn’t always trickle down from Hollywood, of course. It can be informed by demographics, common sense, rumors or some combination of the above: Women in Seattle have their pick of the tech-bro litter. Singles in Washington, D.C., had better be OK dating someone in politics (or politics-adjacent).
Is there anything to these citywide generalizations? Sometimes. Do most people believe their city is the worst for dating? Most definitely. And do these reputations ever affect the major life decisions of real-life singles? For a few Black women, it depends.
Nia Randall, 40, lived in Los Angeles for 12 years before moving back to her hometown in Illinois. While she wasn’t directly influenced by “Insecure” to move there — she was eager to work in the entertainment industry — she was surprised at how difficult it was to form a long-lasting relationship in Los Angeles.
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The post The Worst City to Date In? Wherever You’re Living. appeared first on New York Times.
