Single minded
City’s unmarrieds seek venues, events for getting acquainted
Many of us who are single in Fort Wayne have shared a common experience:
A friend and former Fort Wayne resident, now living in a bigger city, calls to check in. Talk turns to potential paramours, of whom the out-of-towner has many, and of whom we seem to have few.
“I miss Fort Wayne,” the out-of-towner says. “But I feel for you. I would never, ever want to live there and be single.”
Our hearts sink. We consider moving for the 200th time. There must be single people here, we reason. But where do they hide?
Census figures indicate that there are more single people in Fort Wayne than many would imagine. Single men and women ages 20 to 34 make up 14 percent of the county population, according to the 2007 American Community Survey, a population sample.
There are more single men ages 20 to 34 in the county than married men (roughly 20,000 compared with 13,000).
Married women outnumber the unmarried in the same age group, although the survey estimates that about 14,000 county women have never put on a ring.
Are the local young singles as happy with the city as their married counterparts? From interviews with local singles, it seems unlikely.
Fort Wayne may be an All-American City, but it still suffers from an image problem, at least among the young singles crowd. It’s great to have a family-friendly city, singles say, but they want their own scene, too.
How can Fort Wayne become more single-friendly? We asked several area singles to weigh in.
Dan Swartz
, 23, has a goal: to make Fort Wayne a cool city. The Leo High School graduate studied art at the University of Saint Francis before dropping out and moving to New York City, where he spent a year working odd jobs, including a stint at an investment firm and time as a gallery employee and art archivist. He had 10 goals to accomplish while he was there, nine of which he met in the first few months.
“My last goal was to lift the curse of Fort Wayne,” Swartz says, laughing. “I wanted to sort of make observations about how Fort Wayne could become a cooler city. My friends always joked that there was a curse on Fort Wayne – that no matter what happens, whether jobs come in or more business, it’s not going to be get any better.”
Now that he’s back in town, Swartz has started a non-profit, called Wunderkammer Co., to support contemporary art. He’s searching for gallery space and working with Club Soda to organize art exhibitions showcasing work by local artists. Artlink and other downtown galleries are great, he says, but adds that the city could use more. Going to a gallery opening, he says, is a great place for singles to mingle outside of a restaurant or bar.
“You can’t go to a lot of gallery openings here,” he says. “If you go to two in a night, it’s like the stars aligning and then you won’t have another open for eight months. But of course the arts would come after more bars and restaurants move downtown.” He also thinks the city should make more of its various colleges and universities.
“We are totally a college town, but we do not market (it) as one,” he says. “We have far over 20,000 students, but there isn’t a cool neighborhood around those campuses.
“I love Fort Wayne because I was born here and because it’s so dysfunctional that it reminds me of family,” he said. “… But I don’t think that it’s ever had enough of an identity to really hold onto (single) people. It needs to let its freak flag fly.”
Courtney Tritch
,
31, moved back to Fort Wayne two years ago after living in Chicago for seven years. As a single person moving back to Fort Wayne, she was a little nervous.
“I think the predominant understanding is that it’s a place to raise a family,” she said. She looked for a loft downtown so she could walk to work, but finding a place proved difficult. As much as she wanted it to be, Fort Wayne just wasn’t Chicago. Eventually Tritch, who previously worked for the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce in Chicago, got a job as marketing and events coordinator for the Downtown Improvement District, where she works on ways to draw dynamic young people into downtown. “Singles thrive in a more urban city,” Tritch says. “If you’re single and you’re only in the suburbs it’s going to be really hard to meet someone.”
What would get more singles to come downtown? Tritch thinks the city needs to be more “walkable” and have more places to walk to, such as restaurants, retail shops and coffee houses that stay open during the weekend.
The opening of Parkview Field has been “huge” in terms of drawing people downtown, she says, but the city shouldn’t stop there. “You have to create that critical mass of things going on to keep people coming in,” Tritch says.
Many people use the city’s trails, she says, but it would be nice to give them downtown weekend destinations, like the hip brunch spots she used to frequent in Chicago. She’s gone to Sunday brunch at J.K. O’Donnell’s for the past few months and says she’d love to see other restaurants offer similar options.
“(Brunch) is one of my personal favorite things to do, and it’s a great way to get a group of people together without going to a bar,” she says.
Chris Bandemer
, 32, moved back to Fort Wayne after going to law school in Denver. Now he’s working as an associate at Emerick & Diggins in Kendallville but living in Fort Wayne.
He’s content with his life here but says he sometimes misses Denver.
Fort Wayne is “a bedroom community that caters to families,” he says. And although there’s a lot going on in Fort Wayne in terms of nightlife, he says he finds it hard to meet people outside work.
“When you’re in a bigger city, it’s easier to find a group to do things with, whether it be a running group or some other kind of adult intramural,” he said. “When I was in Denver, there was a company called Sports Monster that had intramural leagues with good baseball, basketball and dodgeball.”
Bandemer says he’s searched the Internet for information about similar groups and clubs in Fort Wayne but to no avail.
He stumbled upon MeetUp.com, a popular Internet site that allows people from across the country to form their own groups and connect with people who share similar interests. But either few in Fort Wayne had heard of the site, or few were interested in using it, he says.
“I think there’s like 10 meet-up groups,” he said. “And five of them are dedicated to electing Ron Paul.”
Lisa Updike
, 28, has worked as an attorney at Barnes & Thornburg LLP for three years. She’s a Huntington native and sits on the Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana board of directors. She says she’s noticed improvements since she’s been in Fort Wayne, partly from the opening of Parkview Field, but she says the city has a way to go before it becomes truly single-person-friendly.
The city needs a distinct, hip area comparable to Indianapolis’ Broad Ripple or Massachusetts Avenue, she says. “We have areas already well-suited for this, and we need businesses and community members to commit to make it happen,” she says.
Updike says having access to high-speed rail would also draw more single people into Fort Wayne.
“If you can connect with other major metropolitan areas quickly and relatively inexpensively, you get the best of both worlds living here,” Updike says. “Fort Wayne offers a city experience with low cost of living but while still offering efficient access to other larger cities.”
Updike also thinks that employers can play an important role in bringing a steady influx of smart singles to Fort Wayne.
“We have great companies like Lincoln, Vera Bradley, ITT, Zimmer and Sweetwater (Sound), for example, that bring in talent from across the United States,” she says. “We need to continue to attract these employers that recruit nationally and locally. But once people move here, we need a vibrant downtown and access to other cities to retain them.”
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