After spending my whole life in small towns, I recently moved to a big city full of “young professionals.” I live in a neighborhood with lots of stereotypically attractive 20-somethings.

I go out multiple times a week, usually alone, and I’ve noticed that people rarely meet each other at bars. They show up with their groups and stick with them. They don’t mingle.

You might see some of the most attractive people — I’m talking about ones who could model — cross over the gender line and chat. But even that’s rare.

On my end, I don’t think I’ve ever had a meaningful conversation with a woman while out, by myself, at a bar.

When my out of town friends visit, we hit the bars and talk to girls. But even then it feels different than it did a few years ago. The number of outright rude or dismissive reactions we get has skyrocketed. Nothing we say is out of pocket, creepy, or desperate, from what I can tell. And we definitely look better now than we used to.

The part that really trips me up: the same women who are so antisocial at a bar are the ones I regularly go out with on dating apps. I do pretty well on the apps, and if I invest time and energy into them, I can go on 2-3 dates a week.

This leads me to believe that apps really have overtaken bars/clubs as the leading spots for hookup culture — at least for the vast majority of people. It’s kind of depressing. But maybe this is just a geographic thing. Or something else.

I’m curious what others have experienced.