You’re looking for, in my case, 6000 people out of 600000, and many of those are out of your age range or not of your preferred gender, not to mention they might not be looking for someone
I actually did this a couple of months ago. I pulled population data and using percentages from the most recent census and pew research I applied reasonable dating criteria to the population to figure out what the order of magnitude was.
When I say reasonable criteria stuff like age range and gender distribution in addition to some other stuff. I also tried to avoid statistics that are highly correlated. For instance since I used percentage of people with a college degree, I avoided using percentage of the population that is liberal since education tends to make people more liberal.
The number I came up with was 35 people… I also estimated that the half life for that number to replenish is about two years. That is with me living in one of the larger cities in the US (top 30). The criteria I used isn’t all that unreasonable, but one of the items has a VERY large gender disparity. Meaning if I were a women looking for the same criteria in a man the options would be one or two orders of magnitude larger.
All of that is to say, I have no doubt there isn’t just one person out there that is perfect for me. In fact I’m positive there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands out there. I am as confident in this fact as I am that aliens exist or have existed. The reason I will likely never meet either though is the same though. Space is too large and time is too vast.
Let’s do this with my county, and add in the gay clause!
So roughly 40k population. Around half are women, so let’s go to 20k. Around 10% are gay/bi/pan so 2000.
Now 1% of that 2000… I’m looking at roughly 20 people. Of which the odds of them being in my age range, single, and not a meth head, a religious nutjob, or so totally anti religious as to prohibit us interacting is very, very slim. Add into that that I don’t think I could form a bond with someone who doesn’t share left wing, or at least progressive, tendencies… And… Yeah. I need to get the fuck out of this county and into a city, asap!
Recalculate it with your city or district in mind
You’re looking for, in my case, 6000 people out of 600000, and many of those are out of your age range or not of your preferred gender, not to mention they might not be looking for someone
I actually did this a couple of months ago. I pulled population data and using percentages from the most recent census and pew research I applied reasonable dating criteria to the population to figure out what the order of magnitude was.
When I say reasonable criteria stuff like age range and gender distribution in addition to some other stuff. I also tried to avoid statistics that are highly correlated. For instance since I used percentage of people with a college degree, I avoided using percentage of the population that is liberal since education tends to make people more liberal.
The number I came up with was 35 people… I also estimated that the half life for that number to replenish is about two years. That is with me living in one of the larger cities in the US (top 30). The criteria I used isn’t all that unreasonable, but one of the items has a VERY large gender disparity. Meaning if I were a women looking for the same criteria in a man the options would be one or two orders of magnitude larger.
All of that is to say, I have no doubt there isn’t just one person out there that is perfect for me. In fact I’m positive there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands out there. I am as confident in this fact as I am that aliens exist or have existed. The reason I will likely never meet either though is the same though. Space is too large and time is too vast.
Let’s do this with my county, and add in the gay clause!
So roughly 40k population. Around half are women, so let’s go to 20k. Around 10% are gay/bi/pan so 2000.
Now 1% of that 2000… I’m looking at roughly 20 people. Of which the odds of them being in my age range, single, and not a meth head, a religious nutjob, or so totally anti religious as to prohibit us interacting is very, very slim. Add into that that I don’t think I could form a bond with someone who doesn’t share left wing, or at least progressive, tendencies… And… Yeah. I need to get the fuck out of this county and into a city, asap!
Wait till you’re old and gray
(My little encouragement 💪 get after it Dharms!)