This is going to reveal how much of a fucking nerd I am, but let’s go ahead and do it anyway. It will probably also seem negative, but it really isn’t meant to be. Please read all of this before commenting or judging.
I was watching anime and the show I was watching mentioned that the Drake Equation (the one used to determine the likelihood of humanity interacting with extraterrestrial life) could be modified in such a way as to account for relationships and finding true love. I thought this was ridiculous, but I was curious, so I paused it and went searching. I found some articles, a few online tools, even some academic papers about this and apparently it’s legitimate. Also, when you look at the raw numbers… it can get kinda sad at first.
I used [this site](https://www.omnicalculator.com/everyday-life/drake-equation-for-love) to look at the numbers for DE, it’s all set for the UK but I’m American, so I had to go and figure out demographic data. Modern population for US is around 331.893 million, with 51% being female, and my age range of 18-40 as well as assuming half of the women within that age range are attractive (to be less picky). So that would mean around 57.7 million women fit in my age range, but only half (28.85 million) are ones I’d consider attractive… or around 17% are dateable, but only about 8% are people I’d find attractive.
Then when you factor in more limitations like how many of these women are near you, how likely they are to be single, and so on… I got a result of .21935%. Not even a full percentage point. Also, this presumes that all of these women would find me to be exceptionally attractive and sociable, so changing that would also drastically change the results (putting that I was more average changed it to .07897%, a third of my initial result).
So I redid the math, redid the demographic data, got just about the same exact result (a couple of integers changed but the resultant value wasn’t different enough to be worth discussing further) so I thought it was me. Maybe I was still kind of strict. I found [this site](https://realitycalc.com/) and used it to try and double-check myself. 18-40, single, don’t care about kids, don’t care about race, height is 4’10” and up, not obese, with a minimum income of 30K, got about 14.85%… so if anything, my initial number was even more relaxed than I thought. ([There’s also this calculator for women that like men](https://igotstandardsbro.com/))
So if the odds are so low, should I give up? Should we all resign ourselves to this shit being based on luck and hope for the best? I mean, I’m good looking, confident, make plenty of money and I still have slightly over 1/5 of a single percentage point of a chance. The math shows I have almost no chance, so what it says for people less fortunate than myself… it’d be to give up, right?
No. No you shouldn’t. Yes, the math I went on and on about can definitely lead someone to think you shouldn’t give a shit. Be single, stay alone, never bother trying. However, all that math presumes that nothing changes. You never move, you stay the same person and everyone around you views you the same way every single day. You also view them the same way every single day. None of that is realistic. Things change *every day*, even if those changes are minor, it’s still something.
Yes, when you look at math, facts, figures, and so on… it can be disheartening. You know what else is disheartening? Looking at social media and seeing happy couples doing fun shit together constantly… even though we all know they only post about the good times and hide away the bad days, the fights, the toxic BS that happens. We all recognize that it happens, so why should we treat this data any differently? Why should we assume it’s all perfect when it isn’t?
Yes, it’s some shit people need to see. Some fuckers out there are straight up delusional and need to be able to confronted with that. Sometimes you’ll need the math and the studies and everything else to make them see how goddamn stupid they’re being. Shit, some people will be hopeless even when confronted with it.However, it isn’t perfect. It isn’t the end all and be all of dating. We’re so used to math being “proof” of something that we forget shit and just go to stuff like “the 80/20 rule” and OLD stats like they are conclusive and indisputable bits of evidence. They aren’t, because they don’t account for a lot of things. This doesn’t make them wrong, necessarily, but it doesn’t make them inarguable fact either.
In short… no, you shouldn’t give up. Yes, dating is hard… for everyone. Yes, some struggles are more pronounced than others. Yes, sometimes you are the problem. No, you aren’t *always* going to be the problem. Yes, it is okay to be a little selfish, as long as you respect the people around you.
Oh, and wash ya ass.
2 comments
That 0.7897% is not the chance of finding someone, it’s the percent of all Americans that are in the pool you’d be interested in, are geographically desirable, AND that would find you attractive. That’s around 240,000 women (.07897×330,000), and there’s one of you! Seems like a pretty rich dating pool.
I don’t see what the conclusion of this is? There are a lot of people that fit your criteria? Plus, that’s the percentage of the whole population you’re considering, where in reality it would be a much higher percentage of people you know, given the people that would likely be in contact with you say are either in a similar age range from school, uni, etc or have similar interests already.