Texas Women Used This Word to Describe Dating Men in Their State

This week, we learned about a survey by a site named datingadvice.com, which asked readers to describe the men in their state using one word: “From Loyal to Lazy: Survey Pinpoints the One Word Women Use to Describe Men By State.”

The article says that the research was an “online panel survey of 3,000 women based on age (18+), gender (female), and geography (United States). Internal data sources are used to obtain population data sets. We used a two-step process to ensure representativeness through stratified sampling and post-stratification weighting. Survey conducted in September 2024.”

According to the website, which publishes articles such as “Is EHarmony Worth It?” and “What Is the Meaning of Romance?” survey participants described Oklahoma men as “charming” and North Dakota men as “generous.”

Georgia and Pennsylvania didn’t fare so well, with the top descriptor being “immature.” Colorado women found their state's men to be "rude." While Kansas can boast of women such as Amelia Earhart, this survey deems its men as “lazy.” No wonder she disappeared.

Texas men, according to the survey, are best summed up as “arrogant.”

This isn’t particularly surprising when considering that Texas male arrogance is disproportionately depicted in pop culture. There’s the Marlboro Man’s (inspired by a Texan cowboy) arrogance that he could ride a nicotine-fueled life into the sunset without encountering emphysema. Nor have we forgotten Ross Perot’s wishful “option C” political aspirations. There’s also the tired phrase, “All right, all right, all right,” uttered before Dazed and Confused’s Matthew McCounaghey’s whistle-and-vocal fry combo delivers one of the creepiest lines in film, ever: “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”

Professional Texan Tommy Lee Jones needn't utter a single word to convey arrogance: His face is permanently locked in a disdainful expression as if his cohort had just suggested Chili’s as a place to get a good steak dinner.

Maybe it’s the way the Cowboys keep calling themselves “America’s Team” even when they suck and underpay their cheerleaders. Or the way George W charmed his way to the highest office on a legacy last name, despite his word-salad-tossed vocabulary and perpetual geographical confusion.

We need not state the absolute obvious and point out that Texas, comically large and boasting a population of millions, is hard to describe with one word. No one word could sum up one individual human being, let alone half of the population of a massive region. But the 3,000 women who answered this survey (posted to datingadvice.com’s Facebook with absolutely no engagement) — no telling how many came from each state — found that men in Texas are giving … arrogant.

Dating is bad enough in Texas (and everywhere; watch Love Is Blind and you’ll want to hold your partner close in gratitude) but we thought it was because of the three Gs that make up the core tenets of Dallas singles: game-playing, ghosting, gaslighting. Never mind the Orwellian politics; we don't have time to get into that.

There’s also the cheating, as embodied by Infidelity PhD and disgraced Chief of Police Jason Collier: Dallas has ranked No. 1 as the most unfaithful city in the nation, with Fort Worth coming in hot in second place and Houston third. Yes, three Texas cities ranked higher than a place nicknamed SIN CITY.

Arrogance is unattractive, fellas. But it’s the least of our problems. According to a study by the University of Texas at Austin, 37.7% of Texas women have experienced domestic violence.

And according to anecdotal evidence by TikTok users, Dallas is a dating dumpster.

McConaughey is a prime example of arrogance that works when it’s toned down to overconfidence: That math results in Big D energy (Yes, Mom, "D" stands for "Dallas"). If that doesn’t compute, however, there’s a great quote by comedian Leslie Liao that sums up women’s contradictory and complex feelings about men better than an Ivy League course ranging from Simone de Beauvoir to Cosmopolitan ever could: “I’m attracted to men, but don’t find men … attractive.”

Texas men, you may be arrogant, but we’ll still take you all-hat-no-cattle and all.