Living in Dallas, non-Christian/ religious (Houston, Austin: lawyers, statistics, moving to)

[dankzing99]

Hi,

I am considering moving to Dallas. I'm a non-Christian, not very religious/ open to all beliefs, lifestyle choices, gay/straight, etc. and am liberal. Would I have trouble finding people to connect with my liberal thinking or finding people to date with the same views since I am a young professional?

Thanks a lot!

[bpollen]

Originally Posted by dankzing99

Hi,

I am considering moving to Dallas. I'm a non-Christian, not very religious/ open to all beliefs, lifestyle choices, gay/straight, etc. and am liberal. Would I have trouble finding people to connect with my liberal thinking or finding people to date with the same views since I am a young professional?

Thanks a lot!

No problem at all for you to find people to connect with, if you stay within the city of Dallas and not the burbs. You'll find different types of people in the burbs, but it's more varied w/in the city limits. The city of Dallas votes majority Democratic Party, like urban Houston and the city of Austin. Outside of the bigger urban areas is where it can get uber conservative. I'm talking tea party big time.

You can look up the statistics here in City Data for the city of Dallas. There is a decent sized gay population (gay pride parade, although small, occurs every year). A prominent presence of the Democratic Party volunteers and campaigns.

You can look up groups in meetup.com to see what sorts of groups there are in Dallas, to give you a sense of the interests of the people.

Whether your coworkers or bosses will be more liberal or conservative depends on your field. Most lawyers here are very much Republican/conservative, including tea partiers, but there are some who are liberal or even outspokenly gay.

There is a presence here of buddhists, too. I don't know any, but I've seen a couple of their temples, and there's a meetup group or two for them. So I'd say that anyone could find people of like mind here in Dallas.

[Aceraceae]

Liberal quota has been filled.

[synchronicity]

As noted, the city proper is more liberal and whatever. The suburbs...it really depends. You shouldn't have problems meeting like-minded people wherever you go, but it is true that in many of the burbs it certainly trends conservative (and depending on the area, somewhat more religious), so it's a little trickier.

Re: religion - I've been here under 5 years. During that time, I've had...5 or 6 strangers in public (that I've randomly chatted with briefly for whatever reason) as "what church do you go to" or a variant thereof. So, just over once a year, roughly...but it's still about 5-6 times more than I was asked in 17 years in Chicago. Make of that what you will.

Unless you're the type to bring up politics or whatever, it'll largely be "background noise", but depending on where you are it could be a little uncomfortable to have to dance around such subjects (I have a former co-worker who is a friend who I've learned from a few comments holds some views that are dramatically different than mine, so I steer clear of those subjects. We still get along but it's just that mental placeholder "be very careful if the subject goes here").

[RJ312]

Shouldn't be a problem if you live in Dallas proper. Stay out of the suburbs. The city of Dallas itself is liberal to moderate. If you are hanging out in areas like Deep Ellum, Uptown, Knox-Henderson, Greenville, you'll find some similar people.

[TowerGuy]

Originally Posted by dankzing99

Hi,

I am considering moving to Dallas. I'm a non-Christian, not very religious/ open to all beliefs, lifestyle choices, gay/straight, etc. and am liberal. Would I have trouble finding people to connect with my liberal thinking or finding people to date with the same views since I am a young professional?

Thanks a lot!

Welcome!

Liberal and secular humanist here. You will love the city. The suburbs are about 80-20 uber conservative.

[DallasG]

I'm friends with all sort of people including Orthodox Jews, liberal Muslims, Mormins, atheist, conservative Hindus, seculars, agnostics, a la carte Catholics, head covering ladies, not so Buddha like Buddhists and so on but they all seem fine in suburbs and in the city. Just so you know, exurbs and rural areas aren't really open minded.

[hbdwihdh378y9]

Originally Posted by bpollen

No problem at all for you to find people to connect with, if you stay within the city of Dallas and not the burbs. You'll find different types of people in the burbs, but it's more varied w/in the city limits. The city of Dallas votes majority Democratic Party, like urban Houston and the city of Austin.

Yeah, but that's just because of the racial demographics. Whites in Dallas aren't any more liberal than Whites in the 'burbs.

[RJ312]

Originally Posted by hbdwihdh378y9

Yeah, but that's just because of the racial demographics. Whites in Dallas aren't any more liberal than Whites in the 'burbs.

Not sure I agree with this. Whites in Dallas tend to be younger and single. Younger and single whites are more likely to be liberal/moderate, whereas whites in the suburbs are more likely to be married heterosexual couples who are moderate/conservative.

[Aceraceae]

Originally Posted by hbdwihdh378y9

Yeah, but that's just because of the racial demographics. Whites in Dallas aren't any more liberal than Whites in the 'burbs.

Hispanics and AA overwhelmingly vote democrat, so it shouldn't surprise Dallas goes blue in elections.