Hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, riding the horse - all of which includes observing scenery, plants & wildlife. Gardening. Taking the dogs to the beach to chase tennis balls, or really anywhere they can run free.
I guess by city you must mean "extremely large, dense city, like SF or NY"?
Cause, in Oakland and in Richmond, I could/can do all of those things with no more than a 15minute bike ride (including biking in wilderness, with no traffic and few people).
Well, except skiing, since there is no snow here, but it is more than worth it to me to forgo skiing to never have to deal with freezing temperatures!
I can
also the things wepner finds fun, with about as long a ride, just in different directions.
Most important for me, though, on the topic of dating, is having a large enough pool of people. In a city of 400,000, there are only a handful who are within close enough demographics (age, gender, religion, politics, single) who I am particularly interested in exploring a connection with. If in the options for me here only 1 in hundreds looks interesting, how much slimmer would my chances of finding someone compatible be if there were only 4,000 people within biking distance?
I don't fail to get to know my neighbors better because the city is large and anonymous. I fail to get to know them better because I start to get to know them, and they aren't interesting to me.
I guess its easier to find interesting people the closer to the norm your religion/politics/recreation/etc are
In truth, I would really love to live in a rural area, and one of the main things stopping me is the lack of options in people. If I were single I would never consider it for a moment.