Dawn Xiana Moon: Intelligent folk pop with influences from jazz and traditional Chinese music. From Chicago.

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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Why I Will Never Have a Boyfriend

This post was inspired by an essay I first found years ago, Why I Will Never Have a Girlfriend, which was written to explain why its author would (unfortunately) remain single despite having extremely reasonable criteria for a match. Following his approach, "I shall endeavour to make this proof as rigorous as the available data permits. And I should note, too, that there will be no statistical trickery involved here; I have cited all my sources and provided all relevant calculations in case anyone wishes to conduct their own independent review." On to the numbers.

World population (estimated for July 2006): 6,525,170,264*
Since these numbers are only a few months behind, we'll assume no additional adjustments are necessary.

Number of men in the world: 3,286,482,000**
I'm not bisexual, nor am I a lesbian, so we'll have to discount half the world's population immediately.

And in developed nations, in my age range: 172,784,000
I have nothing against undeveloped nations, but given that I'm not likely to spend much time outside of the West and industrialized Asia, we'll have to restrict our numbers to the developed world.

As defined by the UN Population Database, the More Developed Regions comprise "all regions of Europe plus Northern America, Australia/New Zealand and Japan": 589,179,000**

Let's say I'm only interested in men who are around my age (I'm 25), though we'll be generous:

Age 20-24: 42,612,000
Age 25-29: 42,324,000
Age 30-34: 43,500,000
Age 35-39: 43,727,000**
Total: 172,163,000

Since I was born in Singapore and it is a developed nation, though not included in the regions list above, we'll add Singaporean men to our numbers as well: 2,204,000**

Age 20-24: 137,000
Age 25-29: 135,000
Age 30-34: 160,000
Age 35-39: 189,000**
Total: 621,000

And are attractive: 11,518,933
Let's assume that I find 1 in 15 men attractive (in both a physical and non-physical sense) enough to consider dating.

And are intelligent: 575,946
Assuming that the average IQ is 100, in the US 5% of the population scores over 125***. We'll say that this score is sufficent and that distribution remains roughly the same for the developed world.

And are Christian: 184,302
So I've been raised with the funny idea that I should marry someone who is also a Christian. Worldwide, 32% of the population consider themselves Christian^.

And are single: 29,488
I generally identify with Evangelical Christians (I won't go into my rants about that particular sector for now), and 74% of them are married^^. Since it seems like an inordinately high proportion of us get married straight out of college, that number probably isn't terribly far off even in my given age range. We'll also assume that another 10% are in relationships (that's probably a low number).

And find me dateable: 11,795
He needs to find me attractive as well. I like to think I'm an interesting person, so we'll be generous and say that 40% of our men would be willing to date me.

For now we won't worry about any other personal characteristics, like shared interests. By these criteria, 1 in 278,633 men in world has marriage potential. I'd have to meet 14,648 men in my age range before finding one that is truly dateable. If I met a new, age-appropriate man every day, it would take me 40 years to find a match. Considering my current age, I'd be 65 at that point. And since the average lifespan of a man worldwide is 63 years*, he may well be dead by then.

References:
* CIA World Factbook
** United Nations Population Division, Population Database
*** Wikipedia: Intelligence quotient
^ Religioustolerance.org
^^ Wikipedia: Demographics of the United States

Labels: humor, relationships

^ Top | 8:20 AM | | |

Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas!

"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say, 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists), 'Look out for the wall!'"
--Dave Barry

^ Top | 11:00 AM | | |

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Why did we decide to tour the upper Midwest in December?

I'm sitting in a local coffeeshop across from an old roommate who's now a grad student in political science, listening to Keane as it plays over the cafe's speakers and typing on (gasp!) a Mac. I have to say, as much as I love PCs, I've already discovered a couple of very cool things about this computer, mostly notably the visual interface. Though not being able to right click and use all my keyboard shortcuts is rather irritating (not everything works even if you replace CTRL with the APPLE key).

Nerdiness aside, the best thing about Minneapolis has been spending time with two sets of old friends from--you guessed it--my days at the University of Michigan. It's funny how you can find us everywhere. Jayson thinks it's strange that almost everyone he met in Chicago and many people we've met in Minneapolis have been from Michigan. Emily--old roommate #2--and Dave (now a grad student at the other U-M) have been hosting us, and it's been wonderful spending time with them. Not to mention that they've been hooking us up with food. Jayson says that on his last tour, they ate ramen noodles for a month. On this tour, between Emily, Dave, and I cooking, we've had steak and twice-baked potatoes, more chocolate cookies than you could possibly want, and fettucine tossed with fresh basil, garlic, and tomatoes.

I've learned that Minnesotans have found ingenius ways of hiding from the cold--the university has vast underground tunnels so that in the right part of campus you don't actually have to step outside, and you can navigate the entirety of downtown via the Skyway. The end result of this is that downtown Minneapolis, like Singapore, feels a bit like a giant mall. There isn't much happening outside on street level, but some of the indoors is structured to ressemble city streets lined with trees and street cafes. And I'm convinced that every building has a Caribou Coffee, and perhaps a Starbucks too.

^ Top | 6:50 PM | | |

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

The Beginning of the Jayson Simonson Experience

After many quotes inappropriate for public posting from lack of context, lots of caffeine, much fun insanity ("I have a black belt in crazy"), and a minor detour into Duluth across the bridge, Jayson Simonson and I arrived in Superior, Wis. to be greeted by frigid weather but (thankfully) no snow. We were lucky on that last count, since when he drove into Chicago from Michigan to join forces the city was experiencing Day One of a blizzard that included simultaneous snow and lightning. Many of the street and highway signs were covered in the sticky stuff, which made finding our way somewhat challenging. But thanks in part to my less-than-slightly-insane driving (what can I say, Jayson's driving is on the slow side), we made the nine hour trip in seven and a half.

The Red Mug is a wonderful little cafe on the ground floor of an old police station. When Jay and I walked in, we were immediately engaged in conversation by a former Chicagoan who warned us never to move to Superior even though it's much cheaper than living in a major city. He wasn't the only one to share such sentiments ("it's a great place to visit, but don't move here") with us. Despite some locals' apparent dislike of their hometown, Jay and I enjoyed playing in the Twin Ports. We had a small, attentive audience (one woman even wrote down a list of local venues that she thought we should play--thanks!) and the Red Mug took great care of us.

When the concert was done, our barista--a music student at the local university--serenaded us on the guitar as we packed up our gear. And she sounded good. Superior/Duluth may be small, but I think I'll be back.

^ Top | 1:30 AM | | |

Friday, December 01, 2006

What I Learned in Singapore

I'm back in the US, and though I had a wonderful trip and enjoyed being in Singapore, I'm happy to be back in a country where I can understand the entirety of conversations (I usually lost 50% of conversations due to people speaking in Chinese). Here are some things I learned while I was half the world away:

- It's not uncommon to find old men playing Casio keyboards in hotel lobbies backing up women who are lackluster performers but look good.
- The average Singaporean gets about a week off work. And working a 12-hour day isn't totally uncommon.
- Cab drivers usually work 12-hour shifts.
- Taxis are considered public transportation. Thus, they are cheap.
- It's totally possible to cook a gourmet Italian dinner for 40 people in two and half hours (assuming you have a couple of your relatives' maids as kitchen staff).
- Singapore's income tax and sales tax are fairly low.
- Airport security isn't as horrible as it used to be. Instead of taking a full two hours to make it through the checkpoints, it only took around a half hour this time around. Hong Kong's airport was similarly quick, although they literally opened every carry-on bag.
- It only takes 24 hours for me to have to consciously refrain myself from using Singlish. (More on that later.)
- Proving yourself worthy of a bride in the traditional Chinese fashion requires eating and drinking items that are just barely edible. And bringing money to "bribe" her friends into letting you see her.
- Singapore has a long way to go if it wants to become an arts and cultural center. Increasing the social status of artists and people in the humanities would help.

^ Top | 12:53 AM | | |