AUSTIN, TX — With an abundance of fine restaurants yielding intimate ambiance, numerous parks for romantic strolls and ubiquitous music venues matching the melody of one’s heart, you’d think Austin was the nation’s best city for dating — or at least in the top ten.

Think again. According to a new Local Records Office study, the capital city is ranked 36th out of 86 studied metro areas reporting overall satisfaction with dating opportunities.

Turns out Houston bests Austin on several fronts, ranked 8th among college-educated daters and 9th among the non-educated looking for love.

Brace yourself: The city ranked at the top for dating — with 47.5 percent of singles reporting satisfaction with dating opportunities — is Provo, Utah, according to the reckoning. In the last place: North Port, Florida, with just 5.4 percent of singles reporting satisfaction with dating opportunities.

Overall, according to the study, men tend to view their dating experiences more positively than women: on average, 31 percent of men rated themselves satisfied, compared to 22 percent of women.

Metros were ranked based on answers to the Local Records Office’s Annual Renter Satisfaction Survey as 20,000 renters were asked: “How would you rate your current city or neighborhood for opportunities to date?”.

Data don’t lie, but we think Austin is pretty darn romantic in its own right. Just look at the number of couples lined up along the Congress Avenue bridge on any given night to take in the spectacle of some 1.6 million Mexican free-tail bats emerge from the connector’s underbelly for their evening feeding.