Last updated October 2026
Single man on FabSwingers wondering why your inbox is so quiet? It isn’t only you. In our own sampling study of FabSwingers on 19 and 20 October 2026, we checked 16 UK cities four times, from early morning to midnight, and found about 20 men online for every woman. That FabSwingers men to women ratio makes the site close to impossible for single men, and below I show you the numbers city by city, the best and worst times to log on, and what you can actually do about it.
About 20 men online for every 1 woman across 16 UK cities (20.2 to 1): 17,653 men against 874 women, plus 4,123 couples.
Women were under 5% of the single members online (4.7%).
Worst city for men: Norwich, at 28.84 men per woman. Least bad: Birmingham, at 16.79.
Early morning is the worst time to be a man on the site (24.9 to 1). Early evening and midnight are the least bad (both 18.6 to 1).
One thing to keep in mind: this is a sample, not a full census of the site. I explain how we did it below and flag anything that is only my guess.
How we counted
On 19 and 20 October 2026 we searched FabSwingers in 16 UK cities outside London, within 10 miles of each centre, for men, women and couples. We ran four passes, at about 6:45am, 12pm, 6pm and midnight UK time: 192 searches in all. Every search stops at 300 results, and 300 men reach back only minutes while 300 women can reach back months, so raw totals are useless. Instead, in each city and pass we took the oldest “last on” time in the men’s search, minus 1 minute and capped at 60 minutes, and counted only the men, women and couples active inside that window. Then we added the four passes together. That keeps men and women like-for-like. We saw 28,319 unique profiles, and we did not open, identify or record any individual member.
The headline: 20 to 1
Across all 16 cities and all four passes, our windows held 17,653 men, 874 women and 4,123 couples. That works out at 20.2 men per woman, which I am rounding to 20.
Put another way, of the 18,527 single members counted, only 874 were women. That is 4.7%. And if you count everyone, couples included, men made up 78% of the people online and single women just 3.9%.
Here is the cheeky version. If every one of those women picked one man to chat to, barely 1 man in 20 would hear back (4.95%).
It is also worth noticing that couples outnumbered single women by nearly 5 to 1 (4.7 couples per woman). The second-biggest group online isn’t single women. It’s couples, and that matters.
Men per woman, city by city
Every city we checked came in at more than 16 men per woman. There is no easy city, only hard ones and slightly less hard ones. Brackets show men and women counted across the four passes.
- Norwich: 28.84 men per woman (894 men / 31 women)
- Leicester: 23.45 (1,032 / 44)
- Leeds: 22.71 (1,158 / 51)
- Nottingham: 21.94 (1,141 / 52)
- Sheffield: 21.91 (1,161 / 53)
- Glasgow: 20.56 (1,172 / 57)
- Edinburgh: 20.36 (1,140 / 56)
- Liverpool: 20.24 (1,174 / 58)
- Belfast: 19.96 (1,138 / 57)
- Southampton: 19.75 (1,126 / 57)
- Cardiff: 19.06 (1,182 / 62)
- Brighton: 18.98 (873 / 46)
- Newcastle: 18.43 (1,161 / 63)
- Bristol: 18.19 (1,146 / 63)
- Manchester: 18.09 (1,013 / 56)
- Birmingham: 16.79 (1,142 / 68)
Norwich is the toughest by a distance, with 12.05 more men per woman than Birmingham. Birmingham and Manchester are the least bad. My guess is that bigger cities pull in more women, but the data does not prove it.
The raw numbers are even more sobering. In each pass, a city’s window (up to an hour) typically held only 5 to 20 women: 62 of our 64 city passes fell in that range, and the most we ever saw was 23. In Leicester, Brighton and Norwich, the women’s searches never even reached the 300 cap: they found only about 205 to 255 women in total, going back as far as a year. That is a very small pond with a lot of men fishing in it.
Timing: when is it least hopeless?
Adding up all 16 cities for each pass, the ratio moved like this:
- Early morning (about 6:45am): 24.9 men per woman (4,180 men, 168 women)
- Midday (about 12pm): 20.1 men per woman (4,461 men, 222 women)
- Early evening (about 6pm): 18.6 men per woman (4,518 men, 243 women)
- Midnight: 18.6 men per woman (4,494 men, 241 women)
So the early-morning crowd is the worst place to be a man. At 6:45am there were 6.3 more men per woman than at 6pm, which is roughly a third more competition. Early evening and midnight came out level, with 6pm a hair ahead (18.59 against 18.65).
What it means for single men
None of this means a single man can never meet anyone on FabSwingers. It means the maths is against you, so stop playing the same game as everyone else:
Go where the numbers are: couples. Couples outnumbered single women by nearly 5 to 1 in our sample, and some couples are actively looking for a single man. Our guide on how to find a bull for cuckolding explains what they expect. It also helps to understand how couples play, so read Swinging: Same Room v Separate Room.
Pick your moment. Early evening and midnight were the least crowded slots in our study. Messaging at 6:45am means queuing behind more men than at any other time we checked.
Make your profile the exception. With around 20 men per woman, most women online can afford to ignore anyone with a blank profile, a one-line bio or a lazy opener. A complete profile, a decent photo and a message that shows you actually read hers will put you ahead of much of the queue.
Expect silence, and don’t take it personally. When one woman has 20 men in her inbox, most messages go unanswered. That is the ratio, not you. If the “no thanks” replies sting, our piece on handling rejection on hook-up websites is worth five minutes.
Consider other options. FabSwingers is one site. If your local numbers look like Norwich’s, spreading your time across other ways of meeting people is simply sensible.
Why women have the pick
Flip it round and the site looks very different. A woman who logs on in any of these cities is one of a handful of women online, outnumbered by men around 20 to 1. She can be as choosy as she likes and still have more offers than she could ever answer. If you are hosting a woman as a couple, our guide on how to meet and treat a unicorn shows why single women are so sought after.
Caveats
- This is a sample, not a site-wide census. Every FabSwingers search caps at 300 results, sorted by last activity, so raw totals aren’t comparable.
- Searches were run with the “wants to meet” filter fixed at Couple (MF), which may affect which profiles the site shows.
- The “Man” label may include some accounts that are not solo men.
- Four passes over one day and night, 19 to 20 October 2026, in 16 cities outside London. A weekend could look different, and a profile can appear in more than one city’s 10-mile search.
- No individual members were identified or recorded.
The bottom line
Our own sampling study of FabSwingers on 19 and 20 October 2026 found about 20 men online for every woman, with women under 5% of single members online, and not a single city below 16 to 1. Mornings are the worst, early evening and midnight the least bad, and couples are the opportunity most single men ignore. It isn’t literally impossible, but it is close, so time it well, make your profile count, look at couples and don’t rely on one site.
Is anywhere kinder? Our Swinging Heaven study found it even tougher, and FabSwingers vs Swinging Heaven vs SLS shows which site wins in your city. I have also counted where the most escorts are in the UK and where the most webcam performers are on AdultWork.
Thanks for reading. Fae x