People in this subreddit hate on Manchester for some reasons that I don't quite understand. I've lived all over the US, including the South and Midwest, before coming to NH and Manchester is really no different from other mid-size US cities.

From my perspective, the biggest difference between Portland and Manchester is size. Manchester is almost twice as large as Portland and if you consider all of Hillsborough County, which has 400K people, you will have a lot more dating opportunities. Plus, if you are in Manchester or further south it is about an hour or less to Boston. So you should definitely have more cultural and travel opportunities.