I’m so happy to live in the era of “prestige TV.” I doubt such shows as The Love Boat, Fantasy Island or The Six Million Dollar Man would have been nearly so effective at mitigating my mopiness. Really, how did people manage to survive divorce in the years before Netflix?
Unfortunately, after working feverishly this past year to add ‘international crime series authority’ to my already overly-specialized resume, the “prestige show” queue is running dry. Which means I might soon need to face up to the whole dating problem.
Truth is, it’s not like I haven’t been looking for a date. I have. It’s the finding part that I’m particularly bad at.
Initially, I didn’t think landing a date would be overly difficult. I eat well, exercise, don’t drink, and have a BMI lower than 98% of North American men in my age group. I have all my hair – even if a quarter of those hairs are grey. I respect my partner’s autonomy, value her needs, and I do a reasonable job arranging the smoke and mirrors to give the illusion of intelligence.
Yet here I am, over a year into the hunt, and my “find a date” success rate is humming along at a cool 0%. You’d think, with 7.6 billion people in the world, that my odds would be pretty good. So why am I now re-watching shows I’ve already seen? Sure, I enjoyed all 18 episodes of Jordskott, but do I really need to be watching it a second time?
So I decided to sit down, crunch some numbers, and figure out why 7.6 billion people isn’t a large enough pool from which to draw.
The first calculation was the easiest. There are two sexes. And in spite of the fact it outs me as “old fashioned,” I must admit I’m one of those men who likes my romantic entanglements to involve women. Exclusively women. So just like that, 51% of the world’s population disappears from my prospects pool simply because I’ve got a thing for twin X chromosomes. That leaves me with a pool of 3.72 billion.
Obviously, I’m not going to date kids, teenagers, 20-somethings, septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians or centenarians. First, that would be creepy. Second, that would be really creepy. Ultimately, only about 30% of those 3.72 billion women are likely to fall into a category I’d consider “age appropriate.”
Even worse, age-particular as I may be, I suspect many women would not define “age appropriate” quite as liberally as I — so in reality, that number likely diminishes to 15% of the female population. Which means my cornucopia of promise is down to only 558 million options.
Roughly half the women in the world are single, but in my “age appropriate group,” that number probably sits at 25%. Tops. So my future girlfriend must come from a pool of 140 million.
5% of the world speaks English as their first language. I’m guessing the number doubles if I include those for whom it’s a second language. Other than my aforementioned attributes, my wit is probably my best lure. And since that wit is wholly dependent on the English language, that means only about 10% of the fish will be biting in this particular sea — so I’m down to 14 million possible partners.
But that’s a worldwide number. Geographical separation means I’ll never have any opportunity to meet the vast majority of these women. And while this website does have a rather extensive international reach, site stats inform me that reach is almost exclusively male. So any future date will likely come from the 0.05% of that English speaking population that actually resides somewhere within the Greater Vancouver Area. 0.05% of 14 million leaves me with a pool of 7,000 women.
Now let’s be realistic. Coquitlam, Surrey, Delta, Richmond, Langley, North Vancouver and scores of other cities are all part of “the Greater Vancouver Region.” They’re also cities I haven’t been to in years. Heck, I doubt I’ve even been to 80% of the neighborhoods within Vancouver’s own city limits in the last decade. So just because there’s a pool of 7,000 potential partners in the Greater Vancouver Region doesn’t mean I’ll meet all 7,000 of them.
Let’s say I go out of my way to crash every party, attend every event, join every Meetup group, and never go to the same grocery store twice. Would I even come in contact with 5% of the total pool? Probably not. But I’m trying to be optimistic, so I’m going to say 5% is possible if I’m willing to quit my job, give up making music and dedicate myself to becoming the world’s most social introvert. That leaves me with a pool of 350 women.
But 350 is a raw total. I haven’t even started to account for the laws of chemistry and attraction. Quite frankly, I’m not likely to fall for just any English speaking, age appropriate female that I meet. Similar values, compatible interests, mutual respect, and that all important “spark” are necessary variables. So how should I weight these? I decided the answer lies with the poets, who for eons have told us that there’s just “one in a million” people to whom we will be attracted. The problem, of course, is that my pool size isn’t a million; it’s 350. Which means I’m 999,650 women short of the number I need to meet if I’m hoping for guaranteed success. This shortage leaves me with only a 1 in 2857 chance at romance.
Of course attraction works both ways. Just because there’s a 1 in 2857 shot that my one-in-a-million girl lies within my meetable pool of potential mates, that doesn’t imply she’ll necessarily consider me to be her one-in-a-million. A staggering number of single men are wading through this very same pool, competing for the same women. And frankly, given that my current income is squarely commensurate with my lifelong dedication to music, I’m not sure that either my stellar BMI ranking nor my smoke & mirrors intelligence will spark many flames. And let’s be honest — mathematically calculating the probability of romantic involvement is a surefire recipe for diminishing that probability. So when I apply some basic statistics formulas and combine the odds that my one-in-a-million is in a pool of only 350 with the odds that she’ll see me as her one-in-a-million, I reach the final number:
I have a 1 in 2.86 billion chance to find a girlfriend.
That’s a rather staggering number. Particularly when you consider that the odds of winning Canada’s 6/49 lottery are only 1 in 14 million, while the odds of winning the more lucrative Lotto Max draw are only 1 in 28 million — a likelihood that’s actually 1000 times more probable than me not having to watch Jordskott several dozen more times before I die.
So yesterday, rather than turning left into a cafe and plunking down $3 for an espresso and the hope of a serendipitous meeting, I turned right. Strolling into a small convenience store, I approached the counter, handed over that $3 to the cashier, and left gripping my very own lottery ticket. Sometimes, in life, you just gotta go with the better odds.
©2018 grEGORy simpson
ABOUT THE PHOTOS:
I seriously considered publishing this article without any accompanying photos. This site has long jettisoned the notion that it needs to constrain itself to the topic of photography — co-jettisoning the bulk of its readership right along with it. So what’s the point of publishing photos with every article?
Would Poe have been more poetic if he’d slipped a few murky daguerreotypes into The Conqueror Worm? Would Wilde have been wilder if The Picture of Dorian Gray contained actual pictures of Dorian Gray? And while William S. Burroughs was, indeed, a bit of a shutterbug, I didn’t see him feeling the need to sprinkle those snapshots throughout the texts of Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Nova Express or Junkie.
Of course I’m not exactly Poe, Wilde or Burroughs — so maybe I shouldn’t be so anxious to replicate their rejection of illustrative photos. Besides, I find the allure of posting topic-specific visual puns far too intoxicating — and you can’t just go cold turkey on a jones like that.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
This is great…one of the best and funniest things I have ever read (and so painfully true). Wit AND humor…that’s gotta up your odds! I am not one to leave comments online, but this is brilliant enough for me to step out of my comfort zone and respond with my appreciation.
I read it outloud to my teenage son, who loved it as much as I did. He said, “That needs to be published in a newspaper!” Then, he added, “Now I understand why so many marriages don’t work out. So many factors involved.”
Thanks for another great read and very relatable article, to both men and women. You’ll have to let us know if you win the lottery…either one. 😉
Kind regards from one of your apparently few female readers,
Shari
Hi Shari: I know this isn’t the first time you stepped out of your comfort zone to comment on this site, so I thank you for that! I should also thank you for being the reason this site skews only 99.99% male. And yes, I will definitely let my readers know if I win the lottery. After all, this site exists mostly as a platform for my grumbling — and I have no doubt I’d find plenty of millionaire-related absurdities upon which to grouse.
I agree with Shari’s son. This site has come to resemble much more of a newspaper column than before, and it’s likeable. I think you need to find an agent first: the girlfriend can wait.
Ronnie: Between you and Shari’s son, that makes two — which in ULTRAsomething’s world constitutes a ‘groundswell.’ So I checked into the cost of having an agent, and while I’m rather certain I can afford the ongoing 15% commission (since 15% of zero is zero), all those upfront reading fees, submittal fees, and contract fees are somewhat prohibitive. So either I’m going to need a bigger groundswell, or that lottery ticket’s going to have to earn its purchase. Thanks for the vote of confidence, though!
So mathematics and statistics are worse at curing existential mopiness than silly ’70 series, which I find a reassuring conclusion and totally confirms my belief that life is utlimately silly, and if taken too seriously, will inevitably lead to a state of depression and lethargy.
But you did pick the wrong series though. The Six Million Dollar Man already won the lottery, Fantasy Island is only for the wealthy few, and who in his sane mind would go looking for love on an overcrowded tin can floating around on the ocean… You should instead try Starsky and Hutch – a series about men in a similar life situation who are not only enjoying themselves, but in the process also do society a great service – interspersed perhaps with bouts of Charlie’s Angels – just to let the image of unreachable gorgeous women remind you of the futility of romantic infatuation.
And then just allow the utter silliness of it all inspire you to go out, enjoy life as it is, and create more of that sublime work you are putting out.
And if you then still feel an uncontrollable yearning for half-forced encounters with women, you can always substantially enlarge the pool by installing one of those apps to your phone. I tried that and found that only a few days of swiping left, right, up and down completely cured me of the idea that “trying” to find a mate would get me anywhere I would actually want to be.
Gino: There is one 70’s series that I’d happily slot into today’s “Prestige TV” viewing schedule, and that’s “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” Naturally in a fate befitting anything that’s ‘different,’ it had horrible ratings and was cancelled 3/4 of the way into its first and only season.
Regarding the use of dating apps: I’m with you. No way! No how! I’m going with the organic approach. Unfortunately, in an effort to become a more capable photographer of the elusive homo sapiens, I long ago perfected the art of ‘invisibility through body language.’ But hey, at this point, the addition of another obstacle or two is statistically insignificant.
EGOR – were your math’s professor from VT to read this he would berate you on your assumptions (not to mention your audacity to co-opt the word theorem for your title). I have no issue with your assumptions that got you to 140 million, but then your correction for linguistic capability and geography are laughable. I would say two things. Firstly it’s a North American notion that people in this work are unilingual or at best bilingual. Even this humble scribe can possibly be considered quadrilingual, and he’s certainly no polyglot. Secondly, Statistics Canada. You happen to live in a country which carries out a census of its population once every five years. I used the results from the 2016 census to come up with a quick estimate of 1,216 potential mates just for you in Downtown Vancouver. I think your odds are way higher than you think.
While I give you a failing grade on your statistics, I would award you A+ as usual on your photos and captions. I love the first and last photos in particular.
I have no doubt that traditional mathematicians would take exception to my “theorem,” since traditional mathematicians always fail to recognize the value of ‘creative license.’ You know all those formulas that distill to the point where they become mathematically sound only when they include some ‘constant’ of unknown origin? That constant, I maintain, is ‘creative license.’ :-p
Glad you enjoyed the photos. Good thing I decided to include them, or you’d have flunked me for this article.
That all said, I am seriously grateful to have the sort of readers who take time out of their busy lives to perform their own calculations of my dating possibilities. The community surrounding ULTRAsomething may be small, but it’s truly wonderful.
You need to go back to college or better yet high school. That’s where the single girls hang out.
Hi Doug: Interesting idea, but I see a few flaws. First, I would need to undergo some sort of radical brain altering procedure so as to revert to the emotional and intellectual maturity that such an undertaking would require. Next, I would need to endure some rather extensive plastic surgery in order to pass as a ‘peer.’ And even then, I suspect my aversion to social media would probably “out” me rather quickly amongst my classmates. In truth, I think the only upside of this plan is that I would definitely get an “A” in history, what with having actually lived it and all…
You can either filter for language or geography, by doing both you are assuming only 5% of people who live around you speak English.
Hi Chris. I did the geography calculations post-language — calculating the Vancouver percentage based only on countries where English was commonly spoken. Obviously, this assumes *everyone* in those countries speaks English (which is likely not true), so my regional slice of the pie is likely even smaller… but it was good enough for a “rough calculation,” which is all I required to maintain ULTRAsomething’s precarious balance between utterly “silly” and vaguely “serious.”
I do wish people would stop checking my math… Don’t you all realize that if you somehow disprove my theory that the odds are stacked against me, then I can no longer blame “statistics” for my dateless-ness? That would force me to own up to my own lameness — and no one wants to do that! 😛
“And let’s be honest — mathematically calculating the probability of romantic involvement is a surefire recipe for diminishing that probability.”
Such honesty shall indeed be the paradoxical key to your success. I venture your reading this article to any chosen candidate and then telling her she’s the one in a ‘million’ (insert correct mathematical result here).
I’m not sure what color is the new black, but such a result would imply that math is the new poetry.
Hi Egor, I must say, your blog attracts intelligent people with a sense of humor; it’s always a pleasure to read both your writing and the comments.
I cannot resist responding to the earlier exchange where dating apps were mentioned. Many years ago, when ‘match’ was pretty much the only game in town, my girlfriends would try to impress me and talk me into subscribing by sharing how they had been out on five coffee ‘dates’ that week. I always told them that sounded like torture to me, and what they labeled as dates sounded like job interviews, with each person checking off their list to see if the other fit enough of the desired qualifications to earn a second date (interview).
Perhaps I am old-fashioned but I trust that I will meet who I am supposed to meet in life, whether that be romantic/life partner, business associate, or friend. I’m not saying that my approach is correct because I have been single for several years. Many would say therein, alone, lies plenty of proof that my way is not the most ‘successful’ way. I will now resist getting into how one defines success, another subject entirely. Regardless of outcome, the organic approach is best for me. I love this saying that a friend in Ireland sent me regarding all of life… “What’s meant for you, won’t pass you…”
I have never tried dating apps nor do I have any desire to do so, and there are a couple of things about them that I feel lowers the odds for those of us who prefer the organic approach…
One is that when the majority of people in a culture are signed up on dating apps and are busy satisfying their social needs in that way, it is possible that they are not staying open to meeting new people in the same way when they are out and about in their normal daily life (i.e., possible coffee shop/grocery store encounters like you mentioned). Judging from the experiences of my friends, people on dating apps already have so many ‘coffee dates’ that their energy is not in that space when they are going about their day.
The second issue that affects the odds of organic encounters is that only rarely do I see someone look up and make eye contact anymore, nevermind actually starting a conversation with a stranger. While mobiles add value to our lives in many ways, they have their downside for sure (people looking down and staring at their phones instead of engaging with other humans, even though loneliness seems to be on the rise in our culture).
I’d love to hear your thoughts and the thoughts of your subscribers who are willing to engage.
Shari: Reader comments are probably the sole reason I’ve continued to write and publish articles long past this site’s “best before” date. I appreciate each and every response — even though many of the comments possess a level of cleverness or thoughtfulness that clearly outshine my original article.
Since you asked, my thoughts on organized dating run somewhat parallel to Groucho Marx’ proclamation that “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept people like me as a member.” Whether it’s old-skool database matching services or the new wave of social-media based apps, I believe that “any woman to whom I’d be attracted would know the man she wants would never use such a service, and thus will not use it herself.” Which probably wreaks of self-realizing defeatist logic, but I’m going with my arm-chair psychologist gut on this one. Mind you, I actually have nothing against the services or the apps or the people who use them, and they’re probably an ideal way for a large part of the population to meet like-minded people — but I’ve never really been a card-carrying member of “the large part of the population.”
And yes, I think you’re probably right about app dating (or clubs or meetup groups or ‘speed dates’ or whatever) satisfying many people’s social needs. But for anyone whose needs are more about depth than breadth, these methods will rarely suffice.
Egor, maybe you should try your luck at the River Rock Resort – after all it’s a place where emotions meet the math. And you can reach it by foot.
Another tip: run a workshop of street/nature/any photography (as no one reads your site no participant-to-be will know you’re not even a photographer, the minus is you have to pay for advertising).
Or this: take your lightest keyboard, hit the streets and play some sentimental or funny (I mean: mainstream) pieces. Maybe focus on places visited by tourists? As someone said above you had limited your target group too much.
Or that: order a cup of coffee and get burnt – really bad. First nurses (maybe other medics), than maybe lawyers (of course, find a female one but check if the other side hadn’t hire another one).
Man, you really have to rethink it all.
Ahhh! You’re right. I’ve been directing all my creative efforts toward some vaguely defined photography, music or writing goals when I should be channeling them toward the more clearly defined girlfriend goal… It’s a solution so obvious that only you could see it! Thanks, Wojtek.
I did my own version of The Drake Equation (for finding a date) when it was suggested to me that it was easy to find someone. After all my calculations, it is harder than one might think.
Just give up man. Stop washing, and instead sit in the park all day feeding the pigeons instead. Soon enough you will be drowning in female attention. I guarantee it.