The Nice Guy’s Guide to Meeting Women in Bucharest (Romania)

Bucharest, the capital of Romania, is a city that promises a lot upfront as it’s one of the largest cities in this region. But once you actually visit, you realize it’s simply a boring Eastern European city. Nightgame disappoints. Daygame is so-so, and online is not that special either. Previously ruled by Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula, what else is there to know about Bucharest?

Bucharest Women

Girls in Bucharest are generally very attractive. However, I rate Western European women a tiny notch above. Romanian girls also tend to be shorter in height than their Western counterparts. Especially younger women sometimes have this gloss makeup around their eyes in both the day and night. It doesn’t actually make them look more sexy, only more slutty.

If you’ve traveled in places like Buenos Aires and Brazil, you’ll notice that comparatively there’s absolutely no display of public affection in Bucharest. Romanians seem to be a cold people. If a woman is e.g. married or engaged, then expect no effort to be friendly to you as a tourist. Sometimes even if its a single girl, you often get that ice cold shoulder after attempting a cold approach. Younger women seemed friendlier, as the country gradually gets more Westernized.

Language

Younger girls in Bucharest all speak English quite well. Generally, the older the woman is, the less likely she is to speak English. But I would only be concerned about lack of English if you’re dating in the 45+ age range.

The national language, Romanian, is a Romance language related to French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. However, knowing another Romance language won’t help you converse with locals in any way. Here and there will be a familiar word, and you may be able to decipher around 25% of written Romanian. But that’s about it.

On my side, I am familiar with French, Spanish and Portuguese, but I recently found out Romanian is most similar to Italian. Thus Italians have the biggest linguistic advantage over there.

Bucharest Daygame

The whole idea of daygame in Bucharest is to do as many approaches as you can, until you find a friendly girl. And inevitably, you will at some point.

The Old Town is obviously a decent daygame location, its very touristic, and thus there are continuously tourists and locals walking through. However, at times, single girls are still quite sporadic.

Also, there really isn’t a lot of tourists in Bucharest. Maybe the middle of summer is different, but otherwise, its mostly locals walking around outside. Perhaps because most tourists realize they’ll get bored after 2 nights, and there’s nothing to see really in Bucharest. You can easily walk through the whole city center in one day.

Moreover, its disappointing that there’s very little to zero girls from the rest of the EU working in Romania. Most young Romanians probably don’t even want to work in Romania, where income is lower than in Western Europe.

After you checked out the Old Town, you can go to the neighborhood right above. Or walk along Blvd Nicolae Balcescu upwards (not down) towards Universitate metro, and even further up to Piata Romana.

These are all nice areas. In the other neighborhoods, outside of this center, daygame will be more sporadic.

Around Summer, the weather in Bucharest is sunny with a nice humidity. This makes walking outside pleasant. It seems like Winter (and even Autumn to some degree) will be cold, rainy, and even snow – thus bad for daygame. The problem in Bucharest is there’s not really a shopping center culture in the city center. Maybe because its a poor country. Thus, where will you do daygame when its extremely cold outside in the Middle of Winter?

Unirea shopping mall is one exception. It has a few approach opportunities, as it seemed like the largest central mall in the city, with plenty of clothing stores where girls would shop.

You’ll see cute pregnant women in their 20s walking around outside on the sidewalk. Not meaningful for daygame, but a sign of a healthier society if the young women are pregnant.

During daytime, women are often on their phones while walking around. They have a phone addiction.

Women make zero extra effort to be friendly in the day (like they would in parts of Western Europe). Girls are to the point, in the sense of: “What do you want?”

“Only to flirt? O.K. Bye.”

Thus its a bit of a cold culture. Of course, its still a numbers game. Long ago I’ve traveled in London. I can imagine that Bucharest is worse than London for game. At least Romania’s capital is safer and much cheaper. From a man’s perspective, it felt very safe walking anywhere in Bucharest, even at night.

The cold culture doesn’t only apply to pickup, but to everyday life in general. People can be full of shit, e.g. the grocery store cashier telling me to not put my basket that hard on the counter when I want to pay (after I put it down in a very normal way). Another staff member flipping out when I go to get a basket, to carry my groceries, on the other side of the counter. And lastly, when I take a photo of something inside the freezer, a staff member comes up to me, and scolds me in Romanian.

Chill out, will ya? It seems like a less “happy” society than a lot of other places.

Girls get married since its a more traditional society. Romania’s version of conservatism negatively impacts the nightlife. But considering Bucharest’s strip clubs for sex tourists (as opposed to your typical seduction or PUA tourist who prefer normal nightclubs instead), nightlife is actually a clash of liberalism and conservatism.

Nightlife in Bucharest

Unfortunately Old Town is not a great place to meet single girls during the night. Here and there you’ll find single women, and if you’re drinking anyway with a wing, you can try your luck. But since there are so few cute single girls around, its not worth going out solo weekends in Bucharest Old Town. Nevermind during the week.

Old Town is also a strip club area, with a lot of stripper promo girls (similar, but worse than the mixed nightlife of Malta in my previous post). So I reckon most guys in Bucharest do the weak thing and simply pay for a strip-show. If you don’t want this to be you, and you love nightgame, then don’t come to Bucharest on your own.

With a friend you can still have fun. But alone, in general its a boring city. For example, you and your friend can have a beer at a few different bars, while talking to one or two sporadic groups of women along the way. You may have some luck this way. You won’t get bored while out with a good friend (thus helping you be more patient).

Otherwise, if traveling solo, stay in a hostel where you can meet wings and/or hook up with tourist girls.

At night, I have to warn you that if its raining, the Old Town nightlife will be quiet and dead. On the other hand, during mid-summer it’s probably much better and full of tourists.

There are a few clubs outside of Old Town, but expect the same very bad gender ratios, and only a handful of cute single girls, who aren’t glued to boyfriends in the club.

Similar to e.g. Belgrade, its not their culture, for women going out, to party alone or with female wings like in Western Europe. Good girls don’t go clubbing in Bucharest.

Wednesday night I found some life at Revenge bar and also Comandante junior. This was mostly students.

Thursday night there was not really anything going on before midnight, and probably neither after midnight.

Friday and Saturday nights, there was a busy side street, but it was mostly men, and not much approach potential. It was still the best small strip in the Old Town though. The name of the strip is Intrarea Nicolas Selari. Bars in this walkway include El Comandante Jr, The Drunken Lords, Times Cocktail Bar, and El Dictador.

There used to be another Comandante (either closed down or its very hard to find), but I could only find Comandante jr.

In the strip club area, women can have extra high bitch shields. Up front you can appear to girls you approach as simply another strip club promoter.

So to conclude, Bucharest is mostly social circles, similar to Belgrade in nightlife (perhaps even worse than Belgrade).

Online Dating in Romania

Tinder is the obvious app to use, with a lot of women to swipe.

I tried Badoo as well, but its a scam app that’ll put fraudulent payments through your credit card, even if you pay with Paypal. Once you authorize the first payment (e.g. 2 or 3 Euros), badoo is “allowed” to sneakily debit your card and steal further money.

Moreover, Happn and Bumble were very quiet compared to other countries. Thus in Bucharest, of the apps mentioned above, Tinder is the way to go.

Of course, International Cupid is always an option as well in Eastern Europe. Especially if you’re the type of guy who prefers seeing a more descriptive profile of the girl, instead of only swiping left or right.

But otherwise, Tinder gives you quantity and quality. There are plenty of hot girls on Tinder. Even the older girls (2 to 3 years older), are also attractive and thin.

In Bucharest I could swipe right almost 80% of time, whenever the girl had a good number of clear photos (thus not cat-fishing nor half-assed profiles).

For online game, you could study the look of the local guys on Tinder. See what you’re competing with, and then make some adjustments to your profile. For example, extra body-fat, on a man, does not look good on Romanian Tinder. Romanian guys tend to be quite fit. They try to look good and dress well. So there is competition for the girls. It’s not like America with its obese hamburger and soda diet culture. If you’re a fashion or fitness slacker in your home country, it’ll count against you in Romania.

Here’s another final Romania dating app suggestion: VictoriaMilan. Create a profile here. It’s a popular dating site in Europe. If you’re broke, rather use Tinder. Otherwise try VictoriaMilan.

Public transport

Public transport is not as easy to figure out (for tourists) as in Western Europe. The buses don’t sell tickets on the bus. You’ll have to find a ticket office – which is only available at main bus stops. And ticket vendors mostly don’t speak English. My point is that Bucharest is not a very touristic place.

Conclusion: Bucharest Women

Bucharest was less fun than other cities in Europe. A culture shock potentially. Plus, with not much to do around the city, at all. Thus I caught a bad cold/flu after a few days.

In the Winter, living in Bucharest is probably similar to what living in Soviet Russia would’ve been like. Generally an unfriendly place with everyone minding their own business. In Summer things brighten up a little, especially for daygame.

There’s really nothing special in Bucharest. Food is bland and boring. There’s no real nightlife culture (apart from social circle, mostly males). And if its raining or snowing in December, where will you do daygame? (Or even nightgame… lol). It’s not a shopping mall kinda city. Thus you’d have to optimize your Tinder. But there are much better places to visit anyway in Europe, also for Tinder.

The only reason I came here, was to experience a new country that’s more budget-friendly than Western Europe. But by itself this isn’t enough reason to visit Bucharest for more than 2 nights. It’s an overrated city.

Have you ever been to Bucharest, or do you want to visit? Post your questions and tips for meeting Bucharest women below for other male travelers!

Bucharest Pubcrawl (2023 Update)

I recently found out about this awesome authentic Bucharest pubcrawl, which scores 5-star reviews on GetYourGuide (click here). If I was in Bucharest now, I would definitely have attended this barcrawl. GetYourGuide’s reservations are risk-free, as they have a generous cancellation policy. You can get a full refund up to 24 hours before the pubcrawl starts. Especially in Bucharest’s colder culture, a pubcrawl will be great to warm things up, make a few friends, and meet hot girls. Book this even before you arrive in the city.