Why I Will Never Have a Girlfriend

Tristan Miller

German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence[1]

20 December 1999

Why don't I have a girlfriend?






We start with the largest demographic in which I am interested—namely, the population of this planet. That is not to say I'm against the idea of interstellar romance, of course; I just don't assess the prospect of finding myself a nice Altairian girl as statistically significant. Now anyway, the latest halfway-reliable figures we have for Earth's population come from the United States Census Bureau's 1999 World Population Profile (WP/98). Due presumably to the time involved in compiling and processing census statistics, said report's data is valid only as of 1998, so later on we'll be making some impromptu adjustments to bring the numbers up to date.

…who are female: 2 941 118 000[5]


…in "developed" countries: 605 601 000[5]


…currently (in 2000) aged 18 to 25: 65 399 083[4][5]

Being neither a pedophile nor a geriatrophile, I would like to restrict my search for love to those whose age is approximately equal to my own. This is where things get a bit tricky, for two reasons: first, the census data is nearly two years old, and second, the "population by age" tables in WP/98 are not separated into individual ages but are instead quantized into "15–19" (of whom there are 39 560 000) and "20–44" (population 215 073 000). Women aged 15 to 19 in 1998 will be aged 17 to 21 in 2000; in this group, I'm interested in dating those 18 or older, so, assuming the "15–19" girls' ages are uniformly distributed, we have

39\,560\,000 \times \frac{\left| 21 - 18 \right| + 1}{\left| 19 - 15
  \right| + 1} = 31\,648\,000.

Similarly, of 1998's "20–44" category, there are now

215\,073\,000 \times \frac{\left| 25 - 22 \right| + 1}{\left| 44 - 20
  \right| + 1} = 34\,411\,680

females within my chosen age limit. The sum, 66 059 680, represents the total number of females aged 18 to 25 in developed countries in 2000. Unfortunately, roughly 1% of these girls will have died since the census was taken;[6] thus, the true number of so-far eligible bachelorettes is 65 399 083.

…who are beautiful: 1 487 838


e^{-\frac{1}{2}z^2} dz~\approx~0.022\,75


…and intelligent: 236 053


e^{-\frac{1}{2}z^2} dz~\approx~84.1345\%

of the population must be discounted.

…and not already committed: 118 027


…and also might like me: 18 726




Update (2000-04-01): My sarcastic pleas for some e-mail have finally been answered. Take a look at this letter from a hysterical female reader, which I think perfectly demonstrates the point of this entire essay. (I think the fact that she's a WebTV user explains a lot—in fact, I was sure this e-mail was an April Fool's joke until I noticed the return address.)

Endnotes and references

  4. 4.0 4.1 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Report WP/98, World Population Profile: 1998, Table A-3. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999.
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Report WP/98, World Population Profile: 1998, Table A-7. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999.

Translations of this article

You are free to produce translations of this article as long as you credit me as the original author, and link back to the English original if possible. Please send me a link to your translation and I will add it to this list.

Also of interest is Eugen Fischer's critique of this article, which appears in Appendix D of his study Das Vielmädchenproblem.