Are you in the Buffalo group?

“Are We Dating The Same Guy” is a network of private Facebook groups, each one tied to a city or region. Women join the group for where they live, post a photo or a screenshot of a man they’ve met or matched with, and ask whether anyone else knows him. Here is how that works in Buffalo.

Several small groups and one area code

Search Facebook for a Buffalo group and no single main one comes up. Several smaller ones cover the city and Western New York, and they overlap more than their names suggest. The largest one visible right now uses “716 / WNY” in its name, which says a lot about how people here think of the place: less a city with suburbs than one region sharing an area code. A woman in Kenmore and a woman in Orchard Park can sit in the same group and be looking at the same profiles.

For a man trying to check on his own, that spread is the hard part. There isn’t a single place to look, and the smaller groups are easy to miss entirely.

Northtowns, Southtowns and the city between

Dating in Buffalo tends to cross the whole of Erie County. The Northtowns, including Amherst, Tonawanda, Williamsville and Clarence, hold a lot of the area’s apartments and young professionals, helped along by the University at Buffalo’s North Campus. The Southtowns, such as Hamburg, Orchard Park and West Seneca, have more of a hometown feel, and plenty of people there grew up together. In between, first dates gravitate to Elmwood Village, Allentown, Hertel Avenue or the waterfront at Canalside.

Most people drive, and a short drive covers most of the county. It’s also a place where people often turn out to know someone in common, so a post can be read by people who know the man in it.

Niagara Falls and the Peace Bridge

The region doesn’t stop at the city line. Niagara Falls, Lockport and North Tonawanda are in Niagara County, and women there often belong to the Buffalo-area groups as well as their own. Across the Peace Bridge, Fort Erie and the Ontario side are close enough that some people date on both sides of the border, particularly those with family or work in each country.

Long winters and life on the apps

Western New York winters keep a lot of dating indoors, and lake-effect snow can wipe out plans for days. In those months, people who might have met at a bar in the summer match and message for weeks before they meet. A woman may know a man mostly through his profile and his photos, which is why posts here often include them, and why we search with your photos rather than relying on your name.

Working through the WNY groups

We begin with the largest Buffalo and WNY group, then work outward through the other groups covering Western New York, Niagara County and the state as a whole, which is where a post about a Buffalo man would most plausibly be shared. If you’ve lived in Rochester, spent time in Southern Ontario or dated somewhere else, list those places when you order and we’ll search them too.

Whatever the result, you’ll have something solid to go on instead of a feeling.