the .5 percentile

...And here I am.

I know I'm completely shot out for being gone so long. I have a gazilion excuses. Almost 700 billion to be exact (pun intended), and a lot of them are legitimate. But the most accurate reason is that the blogging adrenaline (for me) comes and goes. It went for a long time. It's back for the moment. I'm hoping it has returned for a while.

Meanwhile, I am dating, and dating more successfully than I have in years. Why, you ask? Because I now understand the .5 pecentile.

everyone that's ever taken a statistics class recognizes this, but for those of you who don't - it's a normal distribution. It's the graphical representation of the probability of something occurring.

And in this case, I'm applying it to the probability that you, I or any of us single folks out here will meet "someone" we actually like, let alone that "One".

I was chatting with a friend - who happens to be someone I dated - but our date evolved into something much better. Antywho, we were talking about our rosters - dating lineups - and who's shaking out to be more than just Bachelor/Bachelorette # 2 (or in my case, 2,849).

After talking a bit, mostly sharing lil vignettes about the qualities our daters possessed that will get them beyond an initial meeting, we compared notes. And even though we're looking for different things, and dating very different people - it all boiled down to one thing. The .5 percentile, and the number in the middle.

That number in the middle - the 68% or 95% or 99.7%, represents the confidence interval - which is an estimation of a population parameter. In layman's terms - it's a guesstimation on how many people do/do not qualify to be included in the estimate of that something occurring.

Applying this to dating, it's how many people will NOT qualify to be the "One" or a special someone. In other words - it's the number of frogs you have to kiss to get to the Prince....if you decide to kiss them all. If you're not very picky, and are okay with dating frogs, then maybe 68% of folks won't qualify, and 32% may have a shot at you. Hence those larger areas at the end of the spectrum.

However, if you're picky? Yah, like me...and like my friend...lol. If you're picky, then 99.5% of the people you meet will not qualify to be that "One". Matter of fact, they won't even come close. See those teeny little areas at each end of the spectrum? Yes, that would be the .5 percentile.

That's a WHOLE lot of minnows that get thrown back into the dating pool. Depressing? No! Seriously - not at all. It just makes it easier to toss folks. Dating isn't just about finding the "one" - it's about figuring out all the 'not-the-ones' so we don't waste time on someone we're clearly not compatible with. It's really about getting to know someone, to see if you two are compatible.

Ok, so yes - I am casting my net wider and faster - and eliminating folks faster. Because most guys ain't ready for all this complexity, yanno? It might seem harsh or cold - but it's the truth, Ruth - and it's working for me.