MEME 2: Dating Math
Modern Etiquette for Max Efficiency 2: Dating Math
In my second rant about “efficient, modern etiquette,” I’ll tackle the thorny, often confusing, world of dating rules.
Section 1: The Birds, the Bees, and South Park
I was raised by TV. I never got the “Birds and the Bees” talk. Instead, in my tweens I learned from South Park that the age for losing your virginity is 17.
I have never questioned it. Others have. Not me.
“So, you mean 17, but only if you’re in love?”
“Nope. Just 17.”
Really, I agree with Chef’s wisdom. In modern times, 17 is the right age—old enough to consent, but not too old to feel left out. And, yeah, consent comes first.
Seventeen is about 4 or 5 years after reaching adulthood in ancient Jewish custom, and 1 or 2 years after some Latin friends had their dad take them to a brothel for their first time, a creepy tradition.
Don’t @me if you can’t take a joke. Of course, if you want to wait past 17, like, let’s say you were hit by a cement truck and can’t move properly, go for it. I’m talking most people, not the person who really wants to save it for a terrible night in college.
For hundreds of years, dating rules were completely different. Parents arranged marriages, and if a woman was lucky, she might get to ask a few basic questions about her prospective husband’s income or height. But I assume good parents arranged the marriages when the children were around seventeen.
That old “no sex until marriage” ruel evolved into the “no sex until the third date” rule.
These days, rules are made to be broken. Sex on the first date can be OK. And it can be a mistake if you feel pressured. There’s nothing wrong with asking to wait.
The only modern dating rule is “The Half Plus Seven Rule,” referred to by myself, XKCD fans and others as “Standard Creepiness Rule.” It sets the minimum age of a person you can date as half your age plus seven years.
This rule, which shouldn’t be broken, means you can only start dating at 14, and only with people your exact age. I’ve included a handy graph above (source: Wiki).
The logic is simple: the younger you are, the smaller the acceptable age gap. A 20-year-old dating a 40-year-old is, de facto, creepy. A 40-year-old dating a 60-year-old? Honestly, not that weird.
Not sorry to the groomers at Burning Man who disagree. You men are creeps.
You can work this rule backwards too, if you prefer to date older people. For those bad at math, subtract 7 and multiply by 2 to find your upper bound.
I round up, though others may argue half-year ages are legitimate: “Excuse me, I am 31-AND-A-HALF!”
Let’s review: At 17, your dating range is roughly 16–20. But if your partner is 16, you’ll have to wait until they’re of age for certain activities. After all, their recommended age rule is 17, and consent trumps all other rules, except legally binding ones.
Note: XKCD’s Randall Munroe once excessively elaborated on the Standard Creepiness Rule for an early web comic. He noted that the dating pool widens as people age—peaking between 40 and 60. Median marriage ages have shifted, too. In 2021, women typically married at 28.6, men at 30.6. People are waiting longer to tie the knot—or avoiding it altogether. We get into that in the second part.
Section 2: Love is Ambiguous and Uncertain. Do it anyways.
Ana Swanson
Dating rules have softened over time, becoming more like guidelines.
Take the door-holding etiquette: it’s no longer mandatory but situational. The Great LD taught us, “Type + Distance = No door hold!” I might factor age, eye contact and my mood into this guideline.
Apply similar logic to dating: factor in timing, chemistry, mood, and personal context.
If you’re struggling to date in your teens or early 20s, don’t panic. You’ve got decades ahead of you. That doesn’t mean you should avoid marrying your high school sweetheart out of FOMO; it just means there’s hope for the rest of us.
“Find love in a homeless place,” or whatever Rihanna said.
In this section, I’m talking about guidelines, not rules. IAMU: It’s all made up. If you are strugggling to date in your teens and early 20s, it’s not necessarily a sign. You have time to find your match. Do what’s right for you, not what’s right for your culture.
How Some Lie About Body Count
Take the movie American Pie 2, which posits that the “actual” number of people a person slept with is exaggerated: men overreport by three times, while women underreport by a third. Why? Society.
Men are praised for conquests; women are judged.
The American Pie guideline isn’t for everyone. Better people are honest, not caring what others think about body count. In fact, some people even have a list of their sexual exploits, fearing that one day they’ll have to give a dreaded “Hey, you. It’s been a while… BTDUBS, get checked for the clap.” call to one or a dozen folk.
The Secretary Problem
You may be dating one person now, wondering if a new partner will be better. There’s decision fatigue and social pressures to try new things.
In the 1960s, Mathematician Martin Gardner wrote about “The Secretary Problem” in Scientific American. It has been applied to all major life choices. It the context of dating, this theory handles this uncertainty of when to stop dating and settle down.
Who’s better to break down a highly contextual issue than a math nerd?
The idea is to date and reject until you’ve evaluated about 37% of your options—then settle for the next best match. The logic assumes you can’t go back to previous partners. And, for me, that tracks, because my exes definitely don’t want to give it another go. Restarting relationships rarely ends well, plus it’s super annoying for your friends who trashed your ex as manipulative, thinking the breakup would stick. Please, people, skip the, “I’ve changed! Let’s start over!” BS and move on.
Note: A previous post of mine said more than six relationships used to be considered too many. It was in jest and meant to joke about my long rap sheet.
So the math nerd says if you could date 100 people in your lifetime, you should date and reject the first 37, then settle for the next one better than all the previous.
Does that mean one date? Four months of dating? I don’t know. Let’s assume math nerd wants us to give it a serious go, knowing we need to reach magical #37.
Also, you can’t really figure out your total number of lifetime dates, so this logic is fuzzy. It works for someone in a strict caste system, with a very limited dating pool.
Like, since I did fine on the dating apps, I could imagine I have the potential to date 1000 people. Is that true? I don’t know. What number am I at? Also, no idea.
The Secretary Problem becomes worse and worse if you try to tell your date, “Babe, please, give it a try. You’re my #39, so you’re my #one.” It’s, erhm, problematic.
Rejections happen because of bad timing, a single awkward line, or just not vibing—not because you failed to optimize an equation. But, I want Gardner’s rule to work, so let’s pretend all your dates agree to continue. You’re Leonardo DiCaprio.
Gardner’s theory offers a sliver of wisdom: if you’ve only dated 3 or 4 people, you probably don’t know what you’re looking for. I tend to agree. The more you date, the better you understand your preferences. Or so Gardner and Guy allege.
Other mathematicians disagree. Minoru Sakaguchi suggested reviewing 60.7% of your options before settling down. Maybe she just liked dating more? She reached person #38 during a weird time in her life, and continued to #69. [/Sorry, I had to.]
Rational and Irrational Choices
These are postmodern times. Don’t make everything about some obscure TED or TEDx talk you watched and need to tell people about. Make your own rules.
Doo Wop singer Jimmy Soul argued to not wife someone attractive, rather wife up someone who cooks well. If I learned anything by miraculously dating well past my Secretary Problem number, it’s that Jimmy’s onto something.
Of course, I’d only date and marry someone I’m really attracted to. But I think the best relationships are when you find someone YOU are attracted to, not someone everyone else is attracted to. And dating up all the time gets tiring, which is why a variety of shapes and sizes teaches you about what works best for you.
As Neal Brennan (and other comedians) joked, dating a supermodel is not all it’s cracked up to be. Everyone wants a piece. They may even try to fight you over it. And most people don’t want to have some “trophy” at home, they want a partner.
That’s not to mention that dating-up relationships can get one sided real quick, focused on looks rather than what really matters: food. Half joking. For most people, a pragmatic partnership has each person pulling their own weight, and each person really caring about the other. If that means one just has to be really pretty, fine, but have an understanding that is what the relationship is all about.
Another novelty song—often misattributed to different artists (especially David Allan Coe), possibly by Ken Carlysle in the 90s (who knows?)—ends with the moral, “Well I've heard it said all over this land; That you can judge a man by the size of his hand. So if you want yourself a girl with a tight little kitty; You better find yourself a girl with itty bitty titties.” Have you heard something so stupid, demoralizing and brilliant?
That boomer logic dictates that size queens should shake a man’s hands on a first date. Men worried about their size should not go after bazongas that cause serious back pain. Science definitely doesn’t back it. But sociology may find that the well endowed blue collar men, possibly with an extra Y chrom., tend to go after large breasted women. Meanwhile the ‘they’re compensating for something’ white collar men, who don’t have holes in their clothes, go for the petite.
We don’t make rational decisions. We want our partners to be ‘the one.’ Not ‘the third best, but the one got married and had kids.’ But making someone the one comes from hard work, on yourself and with each other, not equations.
Section 3: The Final Takeaway
My strongest advice for people who are dating: Always have fun.
Maybe I should have started there, but I’m not editing this thing a third time.
If you are not having fun, your date probably isn’t having fun either. And maybe that’s fine, if you want a life of not having fun together. But they probably want joy.
So don’t start a date with a billion questions. Start by listening and acting like they’re a good friend. Do what you find fun. If there is chemistry, you will have fun together.
That also means putting yourself first. If your date wants to go somewhere you don’t, then don’t do it. It’s not going to be miraculously fun this time, because you spent more or because you brought a hottie along. Leave the unfun stuff for date #4, after you had the fun, and its time to see long term compatability and sacrifice.
The thing about focusing on fun during a date is that at least YOU have fun, no matter what. And that’s all you can ask for. Your time is precious.
You don’t even need to continue the date the moment it’s not fun. Who is that for?
True story: I have had a drink or walk with ladies great on the app, not fun in person. Too much “me, me, me” or too many nagging and negging questions. So I politely told them, ‘Hey, I don’t think we have long term potential, and I don’t want to waste your time.’ and ‘You can finish your drink or not, I’ll get the tab either way. I want us to both have great nights, and I don’t think this is headed in that direction.’
And you know what? They always appreciated the honesty, the clear communication when things went wrong. In one case, a table nearby overheard and, after my mismatched date left, even bought me a drink for my forwardness.
Dating theories can be fascinating and absurd, but they lead to horribleness, like those grotesque creeps describing themselves as dating experts. Trust a fun expert, not some misogynist who’s dating advice is to be uncharacteristically mean. The only good advice the manosphere offers young boys with dating is to try more often, asking these developing boys to try each day. Sure, trying helps, though I’m skeptical doing it daily is going to give anyone a good reputation in higher society.
All that babbling is to say, try, enjoy, but don’t rush. Don’t endlessly search. Find friends and community before you find your partner. Maybe the one will come when you join a social club.
In a world of infinite dating apps, it’s okay to explore more than a few options—but at some point, learn to settle. Statistically, your first love isn’t your best love, but statistics also lead people to strange theories of waiting to their 37th date.
You don’t need to date all the fish in the sea to find “the one.” Date the ones you want to date, the ones who you enjoy dating, the ones who don’t feel like compromise.
Guidelines, not rules, are meant to be broken.
And that’s why… seventeen is the right age to lose your viriginity!
