The New Math

"42.7% of aggregate statistics are made up on the taint." Unknown

I accidentally volunteered to assistance with math in my son's classroom. I had intended to second with literacy but signed up without interrupti the wrong day. I hold a malice against numbers in some ways. They are for aye too small in my bank exposition or adding up on some bill-hook I haven't paid. The veritable truth is that I like words more. It is words that give themselves to flights of fancy. Math has through all ages seemed too factual for me.

But I volunteered and be persuaded in following through on commitments, for a like rean I am learning the new math. For problems in my son's class, they use a triangle to be productive of addition and subtraction equations, and it through all ages seems to work. The top minus one side equals the other espouse a cause. The bottoms added together equal the summit. There is a lovely clarity in it.

It is not to such a degree clear in the "do I make bold to eat a peach," or questions respecting "how to live in a nature so extravagant it has a region of clouds," or even in the "so a great deal of depends upon a red wheelbarrow." Life is too big.

Last night, I went to a fundraiser notwithstanding a local not-for-profit that supports immigrants. It was a massive dance, and I went without a fix the of. A man too old by my reckon came up and wanted to take part in a with me, and so I danced with him because I knew that it was violently to be alone, and I left soon because even after I lied to him and told him I had a boyfriend, I still had trouble shaking him off.

This is component of the new math I discovered succeeding my divorce. Some of it was foot-traveller: I have one less house, one less husband, one new ex, unit new email account, four new bank accounts, three newly come credit cards, one son, one dog. I own 166 friends on Facebook (a few of whom I share with my ex who "unfriended" me), 120 connections on LinkedIn, and 68 followers forward Twitter (and no idea how to prepare more). When I got married, men looked at me and treated me in a course that I took for granted. Now, the men my a hundred years mostly seem to want to affix a to women who are at least 5 years junior than they are. This math doesn't execute sense to me. And I in all probability shouldn't complain because I have power to still find people my age to era, but for how long?

There is t any end to the potential for whimsey in online dating. I recently went deficient in with a man who told me that in that place were an inordinate number of women who took pictures of themselves after trees-not desks, trees. Also race go online (hoping for love, friendship, etc) and lie about their decline of life. Really?

But sometimes I can't assistance but look at the number of family who have viewed my profile. There are 2784 commonalty on match.com who have looked me superior, and most of them have not contacted me. I be favored with no desire to reset this "numerate of views"-though it is each option.

Online Dating and The New Math

In 2011, the US census estimated that there were 311,591,917 people in the US and that 43% of them were single. That's 133,984,524 tribe who are not married.

Of those 133,984,524, 37% are definitely too young or probably too old on the side of me (under 18 or over 65). That's: 133,984,524 - 49,574,273 = 84,410,251.

Of this complete, 49.2% are men. That's 41,529,843. That makes me.000066% of the manner through the pool of American men-or they are through with me.

While we're diery looking at the bigger population, suffer's say that 12% of these men present men. That's leaves 88%, 36,546,261.

Let's reply that 14.5% of these men are attractively tall (to me). I am 5'11 and be in possession of always liked tall men, over 6 ft. This reduces the gross amount number to 5,299,208 men.

This makes the haughtiness that, since it is legal to note the time of 18-years-olds, I might era one. Assuming that all the men who desire viewed my profile are tall and that there are an equal number of tall men in every age category (I have power to already see my logic faltering), I am through.000525% of my loch of tall American men-or they are through with me.

Assuming 40% of this elevated group is too young for me (assuage cougar opportunities still allowed but no quantity extreme). There are 3,179,525 Americans left. Of those men,.000875% (2784) are end with me for sure.

But the lines between math and fiction continue to defect.

About 1% of the population suffers from NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder). Is it secure place to assume that 1% of these men are tall? My ex husband who was a stubborn part of this 1% is very tall. I can't help on the contrary wonder if this is common. Is it potential that 2% of these tall men sustain from NPD? Three percent? Four percent? For since, let's assume my tall men assemblage has the statistical norm, 1%. That's 3,179,525 Americans minus 31795 = 3,147,730.

Are Republicans taller than medium? Let's say that my high group is also statistically the identical in terms of political affiliations and that 47% of these men are Republicans (pained guys). That leaves 1,668,296 Liberals in opposition to me to date.

Of the 14.5% of men transversely 6 ft tall, do 1.7% live in my specify? If so, I'm to 28,361. But what if I happen to live in a set forth with surprisingly few tall men? I exercise the mind that I began my overestimation of men divers equations (and many years) ago.

If it is upright that 65% of single people are dating online, I'm left by 18,434-as long as in my case the statistic is accurate. What happens admitting that the 65% is mostly from densely populated areas by the East Coast? Also, it's impossible not to wonder if the other 35% who are not online are more of my best matches.

Let's assume that Match has it fair and that all of the 2784 are in the "feasible" category (tall enough, men, not sportive, not republicans, etc). That means that in six months, I leave be 15% of the way through with online dating in my pass. In one year, I will require completed 30%, two years 60%, and in such a manner on. At this rate, I could be done with online dating in my commonwealth in three years. That's not moreover bad.

Unfortunately, this only works suppose that there is no turnover online, whether people don't move, if my looks prolong to hold for another three years, and a few other things as well. I slip on't think I'd be dexterous to change my profile if I wanted to pass over it statistically valid. This completely ignores the rest of the world, including Brazilian men. I definitely want to date a Brazilian man at some point.

According to statistics validated through Reuters, Herald News, PC World, and the Washington Post in June of this year: A woman's desirability online peaks at 21. At 26, women bear more online pursuers than men. By 48, men wish twice as many online pursuers as women. Men lie most about their decline of life, height, and income. Women lie in the greatest degree about their weight, physical build, and verge of life."

By these equations, after our put away, my desirability was cut in moiety at the same time that my ex's doubled. This is greatest in quantity definitely, clearly, absolutely not like the triangle that my son is learning to be the occasion of in his class at school, nevertheless I do not feel trapped through these numbers in the least. They render not hold the power of my ex save in our previous life or equitable threaten my happiness. Through the spring-time as I have done the basic math, the song have stretched and changed like the most good-described sunsets, quirky encounters, words that get me swoon. And this simple math has an art like the power of a finish turn of phrase. Statistics are like metaphors of change.

New Math & My Date on Friday

And thus I am going out on Friday through a man from Hawaii who is arrival here to run a marathon. I work out not live in Hawaii. The man is shorter than I am means of two inches. Despite the fact that he is large (and does have a delightful tact of humor), he doesn't fit into my online equation for a body I'd like to date.

He writes, "Life is unceasingly too big to fit into the days and weeks that we possess." I send him one of my pet poems by Stephen Dunn.

Ars Poetica

By Stephen Dunn

I'd reach to understand restraint
is worthless supposing that not
something's about to spill or break suddenly,

and that the Commandments
understand us accurately, a large NO
for the desirability of everything

rancorous, delicious, out of reach.
I wanted to set down ten things
that contained as plenteous.

Maybe from the beginning
the amount d was how to live
in a nature so extravagant

it had a firmament,
in bodies so breakable
we had to entreat.

I welcomed, though,
our celestial independence, our promiscuous flights
all returning to earth.

Yet what could awe us things being so?
The feeling dies
and then the expression.

Restraint. Extravagance. I liked
how one time could unshackle the other,
that they main become indivisible.

Astaire's restraint was a style of extravagance,
while Ginger Rogers danced backwards
in profoundly heels and continued to smile!

She had in the same state grace it was unfair
we couldn't take our eyes opposite to him,
but the beautiful is continually unfair.

I found myself imagining him
gone undomesticated, gyrating, leaping,
his life suddenly uncontainable.

Oh, smooth as he thrashed,
I could own he was feeling
for limits, and which he could bear.

Since my dissolve the marriage of, I have been approaching my life a mean like a math problem. I wonder at the joy and boldness in my Hawaiian be d's response to Dunn's poem as he writes: "Regarding restraint, I reflect only some things need be restrained. Most should not. I subscribe to the philosophy of one Mr. Cat Stevens, 'whether or not you want to sing out, hum out.'"

And I doubt that I be inclined ever have the right equation in spite of any of it: life, love, parenting, work. I will probably always treat statistics in the same manner with metaphors and probably always "feel instead of limits of what [I] can undergo."

But also, I do want to hymn out. Oh, how I do!

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