Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Apple of my Eye

I attend a ward of about 70 or so active members.  It's one of the rare wards where the guys outnumber the girls, but half and half isn't an unreasonable estimate. That puts the numbers at about 35 girls (or, 35 guys if your interests run that way).  The geographic area it represents is virtually all of South-Eastern Wisconsin so there is no cross-ward opportunities until you hit long distance dating (Madison really being the closest place with any kind of LDS, YSA population and at a round trip of well over 100 miles I feel safe calling that long distance).

So what would you say when I explained that I have identified a total of 3 people who are of some romantic interest to me from the ward, and written the rest off?  4, if you want, but by the time I identified the 4th I had already dismissed one of the first three.  Restrictive and not open minded right?  Or overly picky?  Or is it incredibly generous?  It represents 10% of the total possible population.  That means that, outside of assumed standards like age range and status as a single female, the requirement of active, LDS has narrowed the possibilities down in the area from many tens of thousands to less than 40.  If I added only one more criteria of that nature there would be less than a 5% chance that anyone meeting my two criteria could be found in a population of over a million people.  So it seems to me that 10% of those left after applying a single rule is evidence of an extremely flexible outlook.

Of course it still means three people.  And at this point, down to two.  Which is still ignoring the question of the chances of any of them reciprocating.