Kentucky Ranks Among Safest States for Online Dating
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Good news for online daters in Kentucky: In a new study, the Commonwealth ranks No. 4 in a new study of the safest states for online dating.
So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.
Hey, I met my fiancee on a dating site, so there’s an example of online dating working out for the best. Honestly, the worst date I ever had in my life was someone I met in person. That date involved her literally excusing herself to go to the bathroom and never returning. And this was after she got into an argument with a woman near us and cursed at an usher.
But I digress. This study, conducted by PrivacyJournal.net, took into account six factors to represent the risks of online dating, gathering numbers from the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Center for Disease Control, the Census Bureau and other sources. The study then calculated the factors per 100,000 people and then used the weighted averages to rank the states.
The six factors were: romance scams reported, identity theft reported, fraud reported, registered sex offenders (yikes!), prevalence of STDs, and prevalence of violent crime. (Ready to open a Tinder account yet?)
Kentucky achieved a safeness score of 78.36, just behind the safest state, Vermont (87.54), followed by Maine (82.67) and New Hampshire (82.44). The Top 10 rounds out with Idaho (78.32), Rhode Island (76.64), Hawaii (76.00), North Dakota (74.98), West Virginia (74.41) and Nebraska (74.13). Our neighbors to the north, Indiana (72.44) and Ohio (66.62) ranked 14th and 22nd, respectively. Tennessee (56.60) ranked a distant 36th.
Kentucky ranked around average for reported romance scams with 4.8 per 100,000, and averaged 92 identity thefts. It showed the fewest fraud cases in the Top 7, with a solid (I guess) 207 sex offenders reported per 100,000 people. Kentucky’s poorest ranking? Reported STDs at 627.1 per 100,000 — so be good, for goodness sake. (At least we’re not Mississippi, which showed the highest STD rate in the nation at an average of 1,243.)
Privacy Journal wrote, “Along with bluegrass, horse racing and fried chicken, Kentucky enjoys bottom-10 rankings in fraud, identity theft and violent crime. Its worst showing is its rate of romance scams, with 4.8 reported per 100,000 Kentuckians.”
The report added, “Kentucky continues the trend of online dating safety having little to do with an area’s wealth. Its median household income is the fifth lowest in the nation at $59,341. The fact that it comes in one step below wealthy New Hampshire suggests that local household income doesn’t correlate strongly in either direction with your chances of having a bad date.”
