Interested in dating in Bend, Oregon? Home to Mount Bachelor, Pilot Butte, and plenty of hiking and biking trails, Bend is an outdoor enthusiasts dream. With less than 90,000 people in the city there aren’t many people available in the dating pool considering that 52% are married.
Having such a small population means you have to take advantage of online dating in order to be successful dating in Bend. You might have to go outside of the area into a bigger city to find the match you’re looking for.
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Best Dating Site Picks
Check out our top picks for sites to use to find that perfect someone for a date or hookup:
Best Bend Dating Sites
For Singles: Match.com
Even with such a small population, Match is still a great resource for singles in Bend. Not only is Match one of the oldest and most established dating sites, but it’s the dating site more people turn to and so you’re much more likely to find other locals looking for fellow locals in Bend. Here you’ll find other people who share your interests and that helps when trying to create a perfect match.
Match is free to use, but the free platform has its limitations. For anyone hoping to find love, it is wise to upgrade to a monthly, 3-month and 6-month membership.
For Professionals: Elite Singles
Elite Singles is the place to go when you’re looking for matches who are more than people looking for common interests. These are people who attended college and work in high-power jobs, which is why Elite Singles is a great way to find them. Elite Singles does the legwork for you in finding people who fit your needs so you don’t have to worry about searching profiles.
Since Bend is such a small city, you might consider casting your net to surrounding areas. Elite Singles will match you with 3-7 profiles each day and you might not have as many hits if you are only looking in Bend.
Elite Singles is free to use and like other dating sites there are membership options with additional features for members who pay for the upgrade.
For Seniors over Age 50: Our Time
Our Time is the perfect dating site for mature relationship seekers in Bend. Bend has a robust senior community and many of those seniors are widowed or divorced and looking for love again. Utilizing Our Time rather than a larger and more generalized site allows you to search based on more specific preferences to help find the perfect match.
Our Time is free to use but upgrading to the paid site offers the ability to access enhanced features and services.
For the LGBTQ Community
Bend has a small but very gay-friendly community and there are lots of people in the gay and lesbian community in Oregon who use online dating apps to find partners.
As with the other sites, since Bend is so small it would be advantageous to cast the net a bit wider and search for other members of the gay community in local cities as well. That way you’re ensured to find a larger selection of possible matches.
Grindr is designed for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of all ages and backgrounds. It’s an app that was designed for all members of the LGBTQ+ community and will help users make very specific requests to find the best matches.
Whether you’re lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer or looking to explore, Just She connects all female-identifying relationship seekers with other female-identifying women. It’s a safe place, created by women, for all members of the community to explore.
For Hookups: Adult Friend Finder
Adult Friend Finder is still the leading site for no strings attached meetups. Though Bend is a small city, there are still lots of people there who are looking for a one night stand or weekend fling, and Adult Friend Finder is the perfect place to make that connection.
Like other sites, Adult Friend Finder is available for free but the upgraded version of the site more options to communicate with people who catch your eye along with resources to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.
Best Dating Apps in Bend
Dating sites are the best way to find love but not all dating sites offer the same experience on a mobile platform. Plenty of Fish and Zoosk are two highly recommended dating apps that will help anyone to find connections. As with other sites, though, it is advisable for people in Bend to search beyond the city to find more matches since the city is so small by comparison.
Plenty of Fish
Plenty of Fish is one of the original app-based dating sites and as such it remains one of the most trusted dating apps around. Once you sign up you’ll be connected to potential matches in minutes. The app is free and the basic features are free, but there are paid upgrades available to enhance your searches.
Zoosk
Though Bend is a small city, Zoosk has over 40 million singles in its database and that makes it a great place to start looking. The Zoosk mobile dating platform is easy to use and it doesn’t take long to get started. The app is available in your app store and you’ll be connected to other singles in minutes. There is a free option as well as the paid membership option.
Best Dating Bars for Singles in Bend
Despite being a smaller city, Bend has plenty of places for singles to meet other singles. Some of these places are traditional bars while others are on the trendier side, while others are places for sports fans to gather. They all offer weekly events designed to bring people in and encourage mingling.
The Dogwood Cocktail Cabin
Voted best Ladies Night, The Dogwood Cocktail Cabin has a vibrant weekly calendar and a daily happy hour to choose from. There is a live DJ on Fridays and Saturdays. Though the menu isn’t huge they have very good American “small plate” food worth trying.
Velvet Lounge
The Velvet Lounge is a place to enjoy cocktails and New American cuisine in a fun and funky environment. It’s a place where locals come to hang out while enjoying each other’s company.
Astro Lounge
The Astro Lounge offers an outdoor patio that’s great for mingling along with a large indoor space with a very long bar. It’s a great place to hang out and enjoy small bites from the menu (there are no large dishes offered here, just snack type foods) with a very impressive liquor selection.
Speed Dating in Bend
Since Bend is a small city there aren’t a lot of speed dating events to choose from, but they do exist. The events that are available are geared toward the Central Oregon region. There are lots of events to choose from and they’re available on a very regular basis, so whether you choose one or several of them you will definitely meet people.
Bend Dating Events & Clubs
Meetup is the best place to find other singles in Bend. The Bend dating events and clubs are based on shared interests and they might even expand to the larger Central Oregon region, but even so they will help you to find people with shared interests like hiking and exploring the local mountains.
Here is the top singles events and clubs site:
Dating Chat Rooms in Bend
Bend chat rooms are limited and you’ll have more success reaching outside of the area to find people to chat with. However you will find a fair number of people to talk to, flirt with and possibly meet. Keep in mind that these chat rooms are usually free services and there is no screening process, so it’s a good idea to be very careful when you meet people in person.
Take a look at some of the top dating chat rooms in Bend:
Personals in Bend
Personal ads in Bend offer the ability to post free ads for other people to see. You might find personal ads in the local paper, but there are actually a fair number of people who go online to post personals as well. Again, since the number of people in Bend is smaller than larger cities, your options will be limited so you might consider looking in neighboring cities as well.
Badoo is the only personals site available online for people in Bend but it’s still a good place to start.
Things to Know about Bend Dating
Most dating sites feature a cross-section of the people who live and work in a given city, so knowing more about the race, religion and LGBTQ+ demographics in Bend will help prepare you for your dating journey. As you’ll see, with less than 100,000 residents Bend is truly a small town but there are still plenty of people looking for love in this beautiful area in Central Oregon.
Race
Bend is home to 87,167 people with a median age of 38.4. It boasts a small town feel that’s very much unlike busy Portland, and the large percentage of white residents makes it very homogenous in feel.
- White: 87.1%
- Hispanic: 8.2%
- Asian: 1.9%
- Black: 0.5%
- Native American: 0.3%
- Other: 0.1%
Religion
Only 26.1% of Bend residents are religious. Here are the top five religions in Bend:
- Catholic: 7.5%
- Another Christian Faith: 6.7%
- Mormon: 3.6%
- Pentecostal: 3.3%
- Methodist: 1.8%
LGBTQ+
Like most Oregon cities, the people in Bend are very welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community and though there are no statistics about the size of Bend’s gay and lesbian community it’s safe to say that Bend is a terrific place for both locals and LGBTQ+ tourists looking for a place to explore.
Wrap Up
Bend is small town at its finest. It’s a great place to meet people in a laid back atmosphere but it’s important to understand that this isn’t a big city, so if you’re looking for something in a potential partner you might have to expand your search to a larger area because Bend is fairly small.
