Lists hurt.
They shouldn’t and they didn’t use to. There was a time when lists were all about fun things. The Best Place to get a Snow Cone, the Top 100 baby names…even the Fattest Cities list inadvertently paid homage to places you’d find the best chicken friend steak, triple-decker pizza and bacon-wrapped glaze doughnuts.
From EliteDaily.com, just in time for Valentine’s Day comes the saddest list ever: “The 10 Cities You’re Most Likely to Get Your Heart Broken In.”
Yep, CreditDonkey looked at failed marriages, STDs and poor emotional and physical health rates and came up with a misery index of sorts.
Their data included the length the average marriage lasts, the number of dating services the city hosts, the results of the Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index and last but not least, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2012 data in Gonorrhea.
And before I cut to the chase and list the metropolises of malcontent, let me just ask this question: Do we make our conditions or do our conditions make us?
If you’re miserable in the one of the happiest cities on the map, or happy in the home of heartbreak, does this list even matter?
All the things measured are in our control to some degree and it’s up to us decide what we’re willing to do to change.
Whether we need to escape an abusive relationship, bad weather or a dried up economy there are other places we can go. But if our heads aren’t right the location be won’t either.
As the old song lyric goes… “Everywhere you go, there you are.
Now with no further ado, here are the 10 cities of doom and gloom:
10. San Diego, California
Average duration of failed marriages: 18 years
Dating services: 7
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 56
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 83.4
9. Phoenix, Arizona
Average duration of failed marriages: 18.7 years
Dating services: 7
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 44
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 106.2
8. Los Angeles, California
Average duration of failed marriages: 18 years
Dating services: 33
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 52
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 101.2
7. Dallas, Texas
Average duration of failed marriages: 17.1 years
Dating services: 13
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 61
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 120
6. Baltimore, Maryland
Average duration of failed marriages: 18.7 years
Dating services: 5
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 88
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 109
5. Houston, Texas
Average duration of failed marriages: 171.1 years
Dating services: 8
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 74
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 124.7
4. Riverside, California
Average duration of failed marriages: 18 years
Dating services: 4
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 152
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 70.4
3. New York, New York
Average duration of failed marriages: 21.9 years
Dating services: 28
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 100
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 110
2. Miami, Florida
Average duration of failed marriages: 19.9 years
Dating services: 26
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 119
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 93.3
1. Chicago, Illinois
Average duration of failed marriages: 21.3 years
Dating services: 16
Gallup Well-Being Index rank: 87
Gonorrhea cases per 100,000 people: 150.5
Admittedly, I have had my heart-broken in a couple of these cities, but thankfully I can say I’ve had way more good times than bad.
So the cities where you’re most likely to get your heartbroken are also probably the cities where you fell in love, too.
And for every crime, divorce, gang shooting, drug bust or epidemic there are probably 20 more acts of kindness compassion and love—enough anyway to keep these cities thriving.
And on Valentine’s Day especially, plenty of hearts will still be anticipating that happily ever after still exists.
