Seattle is ... thirsty? Yep, I said it.

The word "thirsty" generally means "feeling thirst" or being "deficient in moisture," like "parched." As in "Seattle is very thirsty right now," which is headline I wrote about how the Seattle-Tacoma area just experienced the driest summer on record. But it can also mean other things.

The New York Times states that thirsty means a "graceless need for approval, affection or attention, one so raw that it creeps people out." But to online communities, or the Urban Dictionary, it basically means desperate for sex. No matter the decade, up-and-coming generations are usually just different versions of Joey Tribbiani, making generic concepts dirty. Therefore, when I wrote that Seattle is "thirsty," there were some giggles.

I'm ashamed. I knew the double thirsty meaning. I'm the immature friend who makes poorly punned jokes about this kind of stuff. So when KUOW's Digital Community Outreach Coordinator Alex Rochester pointed out that "thirsty" has multiple meanings in our modern parlance ... I was so disappointed I didn't realize it sooner.

But you know what? I stand by it! Seattle is thirsty — for rain and for dates. I've dated in this region. I have horror stories.

The local dating scene has always had a bit of a negative reputation, whether it's women drink because Seattle men are boring or Amazon is killing sex lives.

More recently, my favorite pop study producers, WalletHub, ranked Seattle as the second best city for singles. I'm going to flip that to mean that Seattle has a lot of singles. Whether or not it's considered "best" is relative. Part of WalletHub's analysis was mobile dating opportunities, aka smartphones and dating apps. I admit, I used a few them, like one app called Happn that put you in touch with singles you may have crossed paths with. That one quickly went from, "Hey, I think we saw each other at the grocery store," to "Hey ... I think I know where you live?" Full disclosure: I met my wife on Bumble.

Porch ranked Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue as 14th best for single Millennials, considering percentage of singles, income levels, and entertainment options. And Seattle Met recently boiled down Seattle's dating personas to nine options (I was probably number five). And personally, none of these options seem worthy of swiping right on.

So Seattle perpetually has a lot of singles around. Add a multi-year, socially isolating pandemic on top of all of this, along with the driest summer on record ... yeah, Seattle is probably pretty thirsty.

This Did You Know segment originally appeared as part of KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for Sept. 23, 2022.