Is it Really Possible to Find Love in the Eastern Suburbs?

By Siriol Dafydd on May 24, 2018 in News

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me… by Sue Perficial.

I’ve never been that bothered about finding ‘the one’, nor do I believe he really exists. I’ve never wanted children and haven’t been that fussed on the idea of marriage either. For me, dating (or, let’s be honest, a string of poorly chosen flings and one night stands) has never had an end goal. If I meet someone I like enough to hang around with until one of us inevitably perishes, great. But I refuse to spend my life on a frantic quest to find something that may or may not be attainable; I’ve got other sh*t to do (although, admittedly, it would be nice to have someone to hold me and stroke my hair through some of my more debilitating hangovers).
For many women (and men) however, finding a partner to go through life with is paramount. They know what they want and are not afraid to look for it. My friends are constantly trawling through the latest dating apps and going on bad dates, trying (and failing) to find a meaningful connection.
You would think that the Eastern Suburbs – a land oozing with beautiful, health-obsessed, scantily clad people parading their impossibly gorgeous bodies along the beach – would offer plenty of options for love, but all evidence points to the contrary.
In Sydney it’s widely believed that there are three girls to every guy, and it definitely feels that way. Not that superficial things should matter, but in my experience even the ‘aesthetically challenged’ guys have their pick of extraordinarily beautiful girls. With so many options available to them, these guys won’t look twice at perfectly nice, ordinary looking women, and they’re certainly in no hurry to settle down. They have an inflated view of themselves. They want the supermodel looks with the humility of a mere civilian, and in the Eastern Suburbs they can actually get it, so why would they settle?
Melbourne supposedly has the opposite problem. Now I’m no Cindy Crawford (or any model more relevant to this century), but even I found that in Melbourne the men put far more time and effort into the chase. With more guys than girls to choose from, they have their feet firmly on the ground. It shouldn’t be this way in 2018 but women generally still expect the guy to approach them – it’s silly but it’s true (and suits my life-long, crippling fear of rejection just fine) – so maybe moving to Melbourne is the key to eternal happiness, or at least the key to finding a man?
Over the years, many of my friends have either moved away or seriously considered it, in order to find someone. One friend, after living in Sydney for three years on a fruitless quest for love, decided to move to England in order to meet someone. Two months later she was in a serious relationship. She’s getting married next month.
So do you need to leave our little slice of heaven if you want to find a long term relationship? The Eastern Suburbs has always felt a bit like Neverland to me. As a migrant, life in Bondi – four years in – still feels like a constant holiday. I’ve made my fair share of friends from all around the world here (including many Australians) and they all seem to feel the same.
Maybe it’s because the set-up is so sweet with good weather, plenty of beaches, endless bars and countless brunch spots, so nobody is really in any hurry to grow up? Even those who do eventually pluck up the courage to raise human children get pushed out due to house prices, so what’s left is an inevitably young crowd mixed in with the not-so-young stragglers still chasing backpackers at the Beach Road every Wednesday night. And really, what self-respecting, independent woman of a certain age wants to compete with a twenty-year-old, perky-breasted Swedish bombshell at 2am on a school night?
Personally, I’d happily die alone with a glass of Shiraz in my beach-adjacent Bondi flat, but if you want the white picket fence, the two kids and a decent man on your arm, you might want to get out while you still can!