The Fallacy of One in Ten Million (A Springtide Mathematical Love Letter)

Spring has finally arrived at Washington, D.C. The cherry blossom trees are abloom all along the Potomac, and the surrounding flora join in celebration, donning their own coats of vibrancy. All across the city, young women break out their radiant dresses and dig deep into the dorms to drag out their still-hibernating best friends and boyfriends for a day of floral photography along the waterfront.

Scrolling down my newsfeed bombarded with an influx of powdery cherry blossoms and some equally powdery women, every now and then I would come across a fortunate (or unfortunate) gent who managed to dress up well enough (or who was forced to do so, anyway) to be allowed to have a photo taken with his beau. The sweatpants and turtlenecks have been boxed up for September, and the makeshift-college-wage-Spring-2015-Collection is here to stay.

As the celebrations and obligations dragged on for the week or two before the crunch-time of impending final exams, singles of couples in D.C. and across the upper hemisphere kindled abounding affections for their significant others, and vessels of overall cuteness (albeit the occasional shudder) floated down my Facebook stream.

A particular line in a particular caption on a particular post, ‘liked’ by most people in the particular Facebook fashion of not paying much particular attention at all, caught my eye. Hung above a pairing of two childhood photos of a current doting couple was a long declaration of love and destiny, in which one sentence stated, “there is no one on this earth that can compare to her, she is one in 10 million.” Being the begrudging, untaken stickler for overcorrection that I am, I dismissed the obvious metaphor and underlying intentions of his message (along with the fact that he joined two independent clauses with a comma) in an eager search for amusement in literality.

Pulling up the United States Census Bureau’s International Data Base (because where else but the U.S. Census would contain surprisingly detailed information of the populations of every single country in the world), I came across the World Population by Age and Sex chart. According to the data, there will be around 3.601 billion women in the world by mid-2015. Dividing the world’s population of women by 10 million, I came to the conclusion that when my good friend said that his significant other was one in 10 million, he could not possibly have meant that nobody could compare to her, but was basically implying that there were 360 other women in the world with whom he could be.

Some part of me feels that was not the lovely message he intended to write.

After the three minutes of mischievous chuckling that I enjoyed from this trivial discovery, a startling question crept into my mind and halted me in my tracks: so what number Does my eventual girlfriend (if I ever get one) have to be one in to truly ensure that there is no one else like her in this world?

The easiest conclusion would be to look back at the statistic of all the females in the world and tell my future girlfriend that she is one in 3.601 billion. But that would imply that I have considered every living woman under the sun, from the minors of minors to the older-than-my-grandmas. Shamefully reaching back into my ageist roots, I came to the conclusion that I had to enforce the threshold of how old a person should be before I could date her, lest I want to come across to my prospective other half as that desperate creep who infantasizes alone in the darkest corner of her nightmares. Truly, the adoring title of “one in 3.601 billion,” in its full significance, should be reserved for one woman and one woman alone: my mother. And I feel that conclusion would detract from the purpose of this study.

After much self-deliberation on the best way to determine the age range from which I could truthfully distinguish my potential partner, I finally settled on the antique technique that involved a simple mathematical equation: the youngest person I could date should have an age of half my age plus seven years. Found in popular books on etiquette that occupied the bookshelves of every gentleman at the turn of the 20th century, this method hearkens to a golden age of American chivalry in the midst of much societal strife— a model I want to exemplify.

Since I will be turning 20 by mid-2015, halving that age and adding seven would make the youngest person I could date 17 years old. Reversing the equation by taking away seven years and doubling the result would place the oldest person I could date 26 years old. As the U.S. Census does contain the approximate populations of women around the world of every age by mid-2015, I added up all the women in this world from the ages of 17 to 26 to come to an eventual, likelier pool of females in which I can safely say my eventual girlfriend belongs, and my, does everybody else pale in comparison.

So to my eventual significant other, wherever you are out there, I want you to know that, as of mid-2015, you are one in 579,112,657 to me. And since you have ventured this far into my pointless ramblings, let’s just round it up to one in 580 million because you’re extra special. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the only person for whom I’ll ever voluntarily do this much math in hopes of leaving no stone unturned, that no doubt may fester in the authenticity of your utmost significance in my eyes.

In fact, I’ve inspired myself to do just a little more. You know, the best part about this equation is that it only gets better with time. By the time I turn 24, the range of the ages of viable females will have increased from 10 to 15 years, as the youngest person I could date will be 19, and the oldest person 34. Adding up the ages, you will be one in nearly a billion. As this range continues to grow, and as birth rates continue to outpace death rates, your exceptionality will dramatically increase as well. By the time I turn 30, the range will have grown to 24, and you will be one in about 1.4 billion; when I turn 50, you will be one in over 2.5 billion. And as the rough gets rougher, the more indelibly thankful I’ll be to have ever found this diamond that you are.

In a world where infatuations erode with age and restlessness, there lies in its caverns the constancy of an untarnished Love that will only multiply and overflow once you let it in. Reflecting off its splendor is a remarkable exponential function that hints at the long-lost ideal of an everlasting relationship of intimacy and affection. But even the promise of an increasing significance begets a subtly conditional love based in a strict comparison to the rest of the world, which you don’t deserve (and frankly, neither does my mother). In the midst of my jesting banter and critical brain-racking, I realize that I have arrived at the most staggering conclusion of all.

I realize that I make you one in infinity when I promise that you’re the only one for me.

Works Cited:

https://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/worldpop.php

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33285/33285-h/33285-h.htm