Dating Math

I've been reading a lot of books on interview and interview questions to get ready for the person I'm about to hire. One of the techniques is to ask questions that don't really have answers but are meant to see how the person thinks. Questions like, "How many piano tuners are in the world", or "How many cars are in Los Angeles?" So I decided to do one myself. What are the chances that you will meet the perfect person for you? Here is my thought process.

1. There are approximate 300,000,000 people in the U.S. I'm limiting myself to the U.S. because I don't really travel outside the U.S. that often.
2. 1/2 those are women. I don't plan on going the other way anytime soon
3. I find myself physically attracted to about 10% of the population.
4. I think that 1 out of 4 women are really nice and caring.
5. I need a girl who is inteligent. Probably in the top 5% of the population.
6. I need a girl who is athletic or at least keeps in good shape. This probably applies to 1 out of 4 women
7. She has to love my cat. That applies to 100% of all people. (Okay fine. Maybe only 50% since some people refuse to be cat people)
8. She has to be able to watch sports with me and not complain. That's only about 5% of the female population.
9. She has to be trustworthy. I would say that only applies to 1 out of 4 women. (Maybe worse but I'm being generous. Have you seen Cheaters and Jerry Springer?)
10. She has to be happy with herself and emotionally stable. With all these other things going for her she probably is but lets just say that I think only about 15% of women fall in this category.
11. She has be between the ages of 18 ( I know this is young but if she was all of the above who could say no?) and 35 (This is kind of old but the same logic applies). If the average age is 70 than this would apply to approximately 25% of the population.
12. She has to have not been married before and have no kids. Since I already eliminated certain age groups above lets just say that this number stands at 50% for women of ALL ages so that we can make each criteria mutually exclusive.
13. I'm going to throw in a "TILT" factor of 25% for things I've missed like, "Not a muderer, not from outer space, etc" and because I tend to be picky.


Now do the math. Let's assume that all of the above are mutually exclusive properties. This will simplify the math. This leaves me with exactly 1.37 people in the US that are perfect for me. Since I can't date a .37 of a person that leaves just 1 PERSON! What makes this problem much worse is that I will never meet all 300,000,000 People in the U.S. If I only meet lets say 25,000 of those people then my number drops to 0.0001. What's worse is that she has to

A. Like me too
B. Be single at the time

Lets just say that A is a 5% likelihood (probably worse but who knows) and B is only 1% (If she is so great chances are she's attached). I have pretty much a 0% chance of finding the right girl. This is very disturbing to me.