
DATE: Friday, October 10, 1997              TAG: 9710100634

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LARRY MADDRY, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   82 lines

NORFOLK CALLED BEST PLACE FOR WOMEN LOOKING FOR A BACHELOR

Okay, we all know Virginia is for lovers.

But where in the United States is the best place for a woman to meet a bachelor over 18 years of age?

OK, think about it.

And while you're waiting, we'll put this little CD recording of Connie Francis singing ``Where the Boys Are'' on the stereo.

Time's up. According to the November issue of The Ladies' Home Journal magazine, Norfolk has the best single-men-over-18-to-single-women ratio in the country! That's 122.7 bachelors per 100 women.

Not to worry, Virginia Beach: You ranked seventh in the country as the best place for females over 18 to find a single of the opposite sex.

A quick phone call to Myrna Blyth, editor-in-chief of LHJ, confirmed the high rankings of the two cities, which will be revealed to the magazine's readers when it hits the newsstands on Tuesday.

But Blyth said her staff writers didn't come down here from New York and check out Tom Cruise look-alikes and snappy dressers.

Nor did they sniff around to see how many were wearing citrus colognes. And the LHJ folks have no idea how many guys in Norfolk or Virginia Beach are in touch with their inner feelings and cry at movies.

Nope.

``We just looked at the ratios,'' Blyth said. ``Women can draw their own conclusions. I assume the reason there are so many men over 18 there has something to do with the Navy.''

LHJ staffers examined 200 U.S. cities to determine the best male-to-female ratio from the woman's perspective. And the two biggest bachelorvilles in the United States proved to be Norfolk and Anchorage, Alaska, at 110.44 per 100.

Here's the magazine's list of the 10 best places to meet males over 18:

1. Norfolk

2. Anchorage

3. Salinas, Calif.

4. Honolulu, Hawaii

5. Vallejo, Calif.

6. Las Vegas, Nev.

7. Virginia Beach

8. San Diego, Calif.

9. Chula Vista, Calif.

10. Oceanside, Calif.

Latunia Pack, a young single woman who is an engineer at the Langley Research Center in Langley, Va., said she has no problem getting dates and wasn't surprised by the No. 1 ranking for Norfolk.

``I have friends who have read articles about the large number of men and have mentioned coming down to visit just because of what they have read,'' she said.

At Together - a personal introduction service for singles in Virginia Beach - customer service manager Shirley Carmenzind said more men definitely apply for their services than women. But she said the greater numbers of men applying are not necessarily related to the male-female ratio in Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

``But we do hear men complain that it's tough to find a date here because of that ratio,'' she said.

Merely having more men than women wasn't enough to put any Hampton Roads cities in the LHJ list of best cities in which to live: based on such yardsticks as crime rates, public school quality, the wage gap, health and child care, the presence of women in government and strength of the local economy.

``But Virginia Beach did pretty well,'' editor Blyth said. ``It ranked 47th.''

No Virginia city made the magazine's list of 10 best cities for women. But Durham, N.C., ranked No. 2, and Raleigh was No. 6. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

BEST PLACES TO MEET MEN

The Ladies' Home Journal magazine's list of the 10 best places to