A website breaks it down with interesting statistics
I was intrigued when I learned that there is a website that will calculate the number of single people who meet your desires, demographically and physically speaking. Keeper AI: https://keeper.ai/tools/calculator
Keeper, a dating company, has created a standards calculator where a selection of 14 traits are used to sort through the 2022 Census data along with data from the Center for Disease Control to see how many matches in the U.S. meet your standards. You can select for married or unmarried, a bit odd, but more data.
There are 164,977,341 single American men. I decided to try the standard calculator, inputting the demographics of a certain man who makes my pulse race. The results were that 0.00074% of people meet the criteria. Which translates to 1,221 American men.
Using less specified selections, traits including men, not married, don’t want kids, 35-48, 5’8″ to 6’7″, minimum income $50K, no smoking, excluding obese, and any: ethnicity, religion, education, eye color, or hair color and the odds increased to 0.34% of all men in the United States. This leaves close to 561 thousand potential people as options.
There is a large difference between 1,221 and 561,000.
When I entered my own data, I discovered that the odds of meeting “me” are nil. 0%. Nada. Am I a unicorn?
How do I apply this new information? Should I throw my hands up and say “well, there goes that?” Should I discard any standards? Or should I think outside the data?
Dating Coach Erika Ettin, founder of A Little Nudge, https://www.alittlenudge.com advises single people to date in NATO. NATO stands for Not Attached To Outcome. She advises that this prevents the date from turning into an interview for the position of marriage material.
It also seems that dating apps are set up to keep the odds not ever in your favor. By selecting for height, age, education, etc., are we just making things harder for ourselves?
I wonder if it is just safer to use the apps though? You don’t risk the vulnerability of asking someone out only to find that they are not available, or that they find you troll-like. Just when did dating become so formulaic?
I’m not sure what to do with it all. How important is someone’s looks? Or education, or height, or fill in the blank…I’ve had very attractive partners who were not always good people. On the flip side, I’ve dated kind, caring people but without much physical attraction.
Is this another goldilocks situation? Looking for a man not too “hot”, not too “not hot,” but just “warmly hot?”
Perhaps if the superficial idealisms could be set aside, then the humanity and values of a person could be prioritized in considering a partner. Like, I value humor, do you? Or, I value a positive outlook on life. Or spiritual interest. Or prioritizing family life.
I’m throwing away any ideals list. It didn’t serve me in the past and I’m not interested in repeating that pattern any more. And hey, I’m one in a million:)
Big Love 
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