Calculating Your Chances of Getting Married

Back in the day, before I got married and was closing in on my mid-30s, my mother casually asked what the "chances" were that I'd get married someday. Good question, I thought! Rather than give some run-of-the-mill prediction, I set out to SCIENTIFICALLY determine my chances.  Here's what I came up with:

• There are about 3 million people in Chicago.

• Half are female, leaving me with 1.5 million potential husbands.

• About 25 percent of those are in my age range, leaving me with 375,000 potential husbands.

• About 75 percent of those are married or gay, leaving me with 93,750 straight, unmarried, potential husbands.

• Half of them are probably nice, decent men, a quality I don’t tend to seek in partners, leaving me with 46,875 potential husbands.

• I only find myself attracted to Irish Catholic men, who make up about 10 percent of the Chicago population, leaving me with 4687 potential husbands.

• I tend to fancy hard-core drinkers (“alcoholic” has such a negative connotation) of which, luckily, about 90 percent of Irish Catholic men are, leaving me with 4217 potential husbands.

• Let’s lob off about 80 percent who would have a problem (or whose mother would) with my stance on organized religion, leaving me with 843.

• I expect my husband to be in the top 50 percent in good looks, leaving me with 421.

• I’m a bit more particular about intelligence and would really only be attracted to the top 10 percent in intellect, leaving me with 42.

The chances of one of those 42 Irish Catholic, good looking, smart people WANTING TO MARRY ME is about 1 percent, leaving me with 0.42 marriage candidates, not even ONE WHOLE PERSON.  I decided I needed to move to a MUCH bigger city if I had hopes of getting married.  Of course moving seemed like a hassle so I just lowered my standards instead.

By the way, if you're of a certain age and not married and get this question a lot, go ahead and design one of these. People will stop asking if you pull out a calculator and PowerPoint presentation every time.