I spent 15 years in the bay area, and finally burned out on it and moved abroad for a happier, less stressful life. My experience with the complaints of the bay differ a lot, primarily because of a difference of interests.

Dating is actually pretty wonderful in the bay area, with a few caveats:

1. For the most part, you must develop a non-aspy style of communication. Understanding how to read body language, knowing when to ask questions/follow-up questions, being an honest, authentic listener.

2. Have interests outside of work. It's great that you love your job, but if that's all you have, a partner will have doubts that you have room for them in your life. It shows both a lack of well-roundedness, and in the case of the start-up obsessed, a hyperfocus on money. Many techies also come off quite arrogant, failing to value non-engineering talents and methods of thinking.

3. Find your sub-culture. My love-life/dating life was always very successful, but that's because I had specific demographics based on common interests and activities. Mine were (I use past-tense as I'm quite happily married and in love to a woman I met after moving abroad) music (punk/ska/folk/world). I didn't just listen, but became part of the music scene, met everybody within it, helped promote shows, chipped in on kickstarter projects. This helped my geekiness move away from my own hyper-interest in pointless start-ups, and lose my interest in financial success, finding expression to be infinitely more satisfying.

4. Also, kink. The bay area has the best recreational sex scene in the world. If you're sexually intelligent, seduction and love will follow.

5. Leave the bay area. I'm not saying hop in the SUV and go crush some sweet slopes. Just leave. The next time you quit your job, stick your thumb-out and hitchhike around the world, or at least fly/bus/train there. The bay area is beautiful, but it's really small and myopic. I noticed on OKCupid that the women I was interested in were very passionate about music, literature, dance, and travel, so I decided to explore these and found myself incredible excited by them. I decided to forgo tropical/mountain vacations instead to explore the world, because national geographic just wasn't enough.

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Still, love and sex weren't enough. I loved San Francisco for the first 6 years, then moved to Oakland, where I should have been all along, for the next 6, after certain traumatic life events made me care more about myself than my career, and found myself wanting to live more and work less. It didn't last long, because before I knew it, techies turned into brogrammers, and I had to listen to them speak about VC and apps all of the time. The final straw was when a semi-well-known east-coast fratbro type messaged me on couchsurfing asking if I wanted to be his wing-man. Later that day, a co-worker was bragging to me about hiring a security firm to spray down homeless people who dared sleep in front of his condo building. He was the kind of bro who liked to make racial and homophobic statements under his breath when he was frustrated with his work. Unprofessionally I rm -rf'd my laptop (nuking several large projects which I had in flight), told HR where to send my last paycheck, and told my boss where to stick it. I've been very happy ever since.

In the end, if your goal is greed, or you care about nothing else than work, then the bay area is for you.

Everything else can be found in greener pasteurs.