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This is the Statistical Dating Paradox, and I thank my beloved aunt, DB, for bringing it to my attention.
Statistically every guy you go out with will not be the one.
However, one of them does end up being the one...
Almost as difficult as Shakespear's to be or not to be...
It's a little bit like winning the lottery. When you buy a ticket, the probability of it being a winner is one in a million, so it is probably not yours.
However, somewhere out there, there is the winner ticket.
So before going on a date, even though you know that statistically, this guy won't be "the guy", you should still keep on going out because over time, one guy will end up being "the one".
Any sense?
While I certainly hear your logic and definitely agree that odds are, your next date won't be 'the guy', I don't think this is like winning the lottery (though when you do find the right, you should feel like you won the lottery in how lucky you are).
ReplyDeleteThe lottery is totally random. Dating however, is not as random (except of course for some of those lovely SYAS suggestions). Odds are you socialize with people who are somewhat like-minded, and the people who set you up are trying to set you up with people who you could (hopefully) be compatible with.
Think of it more as waiting for your suitcase on the conveyor belt. It seems like the same suitcases keep going around and don't belong to anyone, and then our of nowhere comes yours. The catch is that you never know long it's gonna take.
Everyone's got their baggage.
i think your argument make a lot of cents. a similar statistical approach is, lets say with every guy there is a 1% chance it will work out (i think this is being overly cautious, since most people probably get married before going out with 100 guys...) this means that there is a 99% chance that it will not work out. then since you are interested in whether it will work out with AT LEAST ONE of the guys you date, the chance that it will work out after going out with "n" guys is (0.99)^n=0.99*0.99*...*0.99 (n times). for example, given the above probability equation, if you go out with 10 guys, then the chance that it will work with none of them goes down to 90.5%. After 20 guys it goes down to 81.8%. in general, as you go out with more and more guys, the chance that it will work with NONE of them goes down to zero, though -- to be honest -- the percentage that it will work with no one is still some positive number, so you really never know...
ReplyDeleteIf you could play the lottery for free as many times as you wanted, you would eventually win, statistically speaking. Problem is, you might be 30,000 years old before you win that lottery.
ReplyDeleteWith dating the odds are much higher than the lottery, so it's likely you will win much sooner.
Also i like this proverb, but i never heard of the case of one divorcing a lottery ticket, while, i do hear it quite often by people.
ReplyDelete