Thoughts of a Doubting Christian ✓

Will I Be Forever Alone? Ask Science!

It may just be me, but sometimes I wonder what the likelihood is of me finding someone to spend much of my life with, whether romantically or otherwise. So, like the weirdo I am, I decided to make a very rough estimate to find out!

Global population: Right now, there are about 7.5 billion people on the planet, give or take a few million. Fun fact: more than half the population is 30 years old or younger.

Biological sex: Thankfully, as a bisexual/queer woman, I'm not limited to any one biological sex for potential significant others. (In case you were wondering, males account for about 3.78 billion (50.4%) and females for about 3.72 billion (49.6%) of the population.)

Age: Obviously, age is a large factor in determining which people could be potential partners. Approximately 26% of the global population is 14 or younger, 15% of the population is 15-24 years old, 50% of the population is 25-64 years old, and 9% of the population is 65 or over.

These are broad categories, which makes it difficult to narrow down. If I look only at the US, about 9% of the population is 19-25 and 12% is 26-34. In the interest of simplicity, I will combine these statistics by saying about 15% of the world's population fits into the age range that will move with me as I age (i.e. people who are currently over 18 and under 30 years old).

Location: As they say in real estate, "Location, location, location." While I wouldn't have an issue with a long distance relationship, people living in the US are probably my best bet. That narrows down my population to about 325 million. Multiply that by the age range restriction, and now I'm looking at under 50 million people.

Relationship status: This one doesn't matter as much in the long run, as people's relationship statuses morph and change. But it looks as though about half of the US population is currently single (or at least not married). If I assume that the single/taken ratio will stay relatively constant through time, even as people shift in and out, that brings me down to about 24 million people.

Education: Now for education level. Call me stuck-up or picky, but as a college student, I don't want to date someone who has less than a college degree. About 37% of my age range has or is in the process of earning a degree at university, which brings me down to approximately 9 million people.

Political leaning: I need my significant other to agree on important political stances of mine, including LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, and advocating for immigrants and people of color. That means they will probably end up being liberal and/or moderate, and definitely not conservative or Republican. About 45% of the US identifies as or leans towards the Democratic Party, and about 32% of my age range self-identifies as liberal. So that leaves me with about 3.5 million people.

Sexual/romantic orientation: Ah, yes. Among 13- to 20-year-olds, only about 50% identify as "exclusively heterosexual," leaving 50% that lay somewhere else. Among 21- to 34-year-olds, the number drops to 35%. That means about 40% of people within my age range are not "straight," give or take a few percentage points. Of course, these numbers are conjectural, and they're based off of UK statistics, so we'll tweak the numbers a bit to 25% of people within my age identifying as LGBTQ+.

This is when it becomes convenient to split people up by biological sex, gender, specific queer label, etc. It's going to be super inaccurate, but here we go. Let's say that out of my 3.5 million people, 50.4% are male and 49.6% are female, so:

Males: 1.7 million, 1.3 million of which are straight and 36,000 of which are bi/pan. Altogether, about 1.35 million males in my age range.

Females: 1.7 million, 430,000 of which are queer, 129,000 of which are bi/pan, and 82,000 of which are lesbian. Altogether, about 211,000 females in my age range.

That leaves me with approximately 1.56 million single people of the correct age, location, education level, political leaning, and sexual/romantic orientation.

Of course, that doesn't account for other issues. For example, I'd prefer them to have some kind of artistic leaning, whether they enjoy reading, writing, art, or music, or just appreciate artistic forms of media. I'd prefer not to date someone who drinks excessively or smokes. I'd prefer them to not be overly religious or maybe even agnostic/atheist (which I guess shouldn't be too much of a problem considering that my demographic is liberal, well-educated, and queer-friendly). I'd prefer for them to be as nerdy as me (Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.) or at least accepting of my passions. In all these things and more, my "requirements" narrow down the people in my range. 

But long story short, it looks as if I won't be forever alone! One-and-a-half million people is a decently large pool of daters to choose from, so as long as I get myself out there, I should be able to find someone to spend much of my life with. What a relief!

What do y'all think? How many people do you think your pool holds? Will you be forever alone, or do you hold out on the idea of life-long partners? Do you believe in soulmates? Are you a romantic, or a skeptic? Let me know in the comments!