10 Things You Must Know About Dating Someone From Louisville

If you date a Louisvillian, he or she will undoubtedly have plenty of awesome date ideas. There’s the Louisville Slugger Museum and the Louisville Science Center for those who are brainy, and 4th Street Live for those who like to party. Other fun options include tons of shopping malls for those who like to shop (and eat at the food court!), baseball games at Slugger Field for the sports fans, and dozens of beautiful parks and natural wonders like Mammoth Cave for outdoorsy dates. And that’s just naming a few!

This could be a blessing or a curse for a prospective date. Louisvillians are used to being around tons of great restaurants with endless possibilities, ranging from pizza at Bearno’s and fried chicken at Indi’s to homemade ice cream at the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen to the famous Hot Brown from the Brown Hotel. Louisville’s food is known all over the world, and has been featured on countless Travel Channel specials. Louisvillians know good food, so choose your restaurant wisely! (Or let your date choose for you.)

Most people know that in Louisville, the rivalry between University of Kentucky fans and University of Louisville fans is for real. It can end friendships, it can split up families, and as a potential date, you need to choose a side – fast – and make sure it’s the right one. Then be prepared to receive sweatshirts, hats, and other memorabilia with the UK or UofL logo on it for Christmas for the rest of your life.

While Louisvillians have their own, independent lives, when someone moves out of their family’s house, they usually don’t move far. If they stay in Louisville, they usually stay within a short drive (or even walk) from the rest of their family, so be prepared to meet Mom and Dad pretty early on.

Many celebs are from Louisville: Muhammad Ali, Jennifer Lawrence, Ned Beatty, Maggie Lawson, Irene Dunne... the list goes on and on. Tons of famous, successful people were born in Louisville, and we’re darn proud of them! If you and your date are taking a tour of the town, you’ll be sure to see some of their faces on posters on buildings, and when you see them on TV, your date will always remind you that they come from Louisville, just like him/her.

Louisville has been called one of the most haunted cities in the country. From Waverly Hills Sanitorium, where people used to do gruesome experiments on tuberculosis patients who are said to still linger there decades later, to the Seelbach Hotel and Cave Hill Cemetery where the dead walk the night and won’t rest in peace, Louisvillians have learned to live with ghosts.

With several world-renowned art museums and theaters, there are dozens of places in Louisville where you can enjoy the arts. There is even a fine arts program at the University of Louisville, where many Louisvillians get their college education. So don’t be surprised if your date wants to take you to a live play or to see a new art exhibit that rivals the ones at the MET.

Louisville is unique in that it walks the line between "city" and "country." While it has many museums and trendy things, it also has a lot of people who love the more outdoorsy pursuits, like hunting, fishing, tailgating, and camping. So one day your date might want to take you to a fancy art gallery, and the next he or she might want to take you fishing at Waverly Park, or to a cornhole tournament in the parking lot of the football stadium, or maybe even for a ride on a four-wheeler in the woods!

Louisville is known for being one enormous small town. Despite the hundreds of thousands of people living in the city, somehow everyone seems to know everyone else. So when you’re out on a date with your lovely Louisvillian, you are most likely going to run into someone that he or she knows. And that person will probably want to stop and catch up with them for twenty minutes while you stand there awkwardly. Sorry, that’s just how it is. If you stick around, the same thing will happen to you one day! That’s how you’ll know that you, too, have become a true Louisvillian.