Mathematics of Dating
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to become a lot more pragmatic about my dating. Partially this is because I’m still (slightly) hopeful in general and I’ve noticed increasing difficulty having a meaningful relationship in Boston. So in a few of my travels I’ve decided to catalogue the number of girls “who I’d hit” to just work out if I was even seeing women I’m interested in. I think it’s a fair starting metric because if you don’t feel like you want to sleep with someone, what’s the point of having a relationship and children and family. It would suck for them!
| NYC by day | Number of I'd hit that |
|---|---|
| Mon | 4 |
| Tue | 11 |
| Wed | 12 |
| Thurs | 13 |
| Fri | 17 |
| Sat | 25 |
| Sun | 22 |
For a total of… 104 in a single week! And it’s cold out! (middle of February)
Now in Boston:
| Boston by day | Number of I'd hit that |
|---|---|
| Mon | 1 |
| Tue | 2 |
| Wed | 1 |
| Thurs | 1 |
| Fri | 1 |
| Sat | 1 |
| Sun | 1 |
9 in 1 week.
Now lets look at the dating math. If 100% of the girls I ask out say “yes” (usual), then I can count on the following rates:
- 50% of the girls will arrange the date, then bail for no apparent reason later, via text message or just not show up like the douchebags they are.
- 80% of those who show up still have boyfriends.
Lets suppose that in dating I would like to add 2 girls per week as new candidates, and (re)-see 2 girls from prior weeks as continuing candidates who made the first cut. Then I would be seeing 4 girls every week. From past experience, that’s doable. 5 is right at the line where I start to forget one girl’s details or start to mix them up. Since that’s a confounding element that would ruin otherwise-ly good candidates, lets keep the math tractable.
Just focusing on the two new girls per week, we can use the above statistics to conclude something. Setting aside the boyfriend statistic #2, if only 50% of the girls I ask out actually show up, then I have to ask out 4 girls per week if I want to see 2 new faces per week. That means that in Boston, I have to ask out 4 out of every 9 “hot” girls I see, on the spot. Almost 50%. That doesn’t provide me much flexibility with reaction time or prior engagements.
Now going a step further, if 80% of those who show up will still have a boyfriend, then only 1 out of every 5 new girls can become a week-2 candidate. Clearly there’s a problem, as only 2 new girls are introduced every week. This tells us that with a legitimate 2 carry-forward, that 10 girls have to arrange dates with me (well above my memory capacity), and based upon the #1 50% conversion, that I have to ask out 20 girls per week. I don’t even see 20 girls I’m interested in in Boston per week.
See, the math just doesn’t work out! That’s why I’m not so excited about dating in Boston.
