The past several years, I have heard a lot of people talk about how dating is all a numbers game, and then I have had others say you can’t get too hung up on the numbers, you just need to find one. Well, while I agree with the latter point, I also think it is worthwhile knowing the former by running an analysis. So here it is:
Only about 9.5% of us Americans have a graduate degree, and only about 15% of U.S. households have an income greater than $100,000. While there may be some that fall into one category but not the other, let’s just assume that 15% of the population have shared interests and values, such as higher education and a certain standard of living. To keep my math simple, I am going to proffer that half are men, the other half women (although there are various statistics that show that there are greater percentanges of women graduating with higher degrees these days). This leaves professional women with only 7.5% of the male population as potential candidates if they want an equal partner, and obviously the longer you wait, the less of them remain on the market. By the time I factor in geographic desirability, chemistry, desired age, etc. I realize I am down to probably less than 1% of the U.S. population, maybe even less if a true math genius took the time to calculate this accurately for me.
Needless to say, the numbers analysis can be very disheartening for a lot of professional women. In the end though, it is important to remember two things: (1) better to be alone than in poor company; and (2) dating is a lot like the lotto– you can’t ever win unless you play the game.
