One in a million

Salut,

sitting in the bus, first morning of my regular schedule where I dropped the kids to school... Well one kid at school and the other one at her moms place from where she'll take a bus in about 45 minutes...

Today's subject, « one in a million » could have been about my chances of becoming a rock star when I'm actually more suited to be a rocket scientists with another type of stars. No, no, I'm taking about the probabilities of finding Mr Right (or Mrs Right in my case of course)... The one where all three levels of compatibility will be fully reciprocal. The one with a perfect 10 at each level. And the one for which we are the perfect 10.

It's easy... to compute... If we agree that there are three levels of compatibility (that I like to call, again, the 3C when I describe them in French), physical, rational and emotional... Let's say that there is one out of 10 people that you find attractive, and out of all those that you find attractive, there is only one out of ten that you would find interesting, at least at a friendly level... That would make only one out of 100... And since falling in love is not that easy, even with our best friends, how ever good they look, let's say, again, that only one out of 10 would trigger a strong enough emotion s that you would be willing to share your whole life them... We get to one out of 1000... Not bad... But then... Comes reciprocity...

For that person to what to share their life with you, you must be one out of 1000 for them... So the compounded probabilities of Mr and Mrs Right to find each other, is.... 1... out of.... 1 000 000!!! So this is where the expression “she's one in a million” starts making more sense...

But in a small town like Montreal, where we are about 3 millions inhabitant (if you count the close enough suburbs), this would be that there are only 3 that would be perfect for me... Ho... But since I didn't resort to homosexuality yet, and let's say that there is about the same amount of woman as there are men, then there is only one and a half...

And if that 1 accepted less than perfection and is already with someone else... Then I'm left with the other half... And who would want just half a lover?

But this is just numbers... If you cut your expectations in half, the combined probabilities, don't just cut in half the result... Let's say you find one person out of 5 attractive enough, and 1 out of five witty enough, and 1 out of 5 emotionally fulfilling... And expect the same expectations from the other, then you are now at 1 out of 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 which is roughly 15 000... So in the 1.5 million people of the proper gender for you, there is at least 100 to choose from... A little better than 1.5... ;-)

This is all fun and games (until someone loses his heart :-), but there is not magic formula, the magic is there... or not.. And you can't force it... And it has to be reciprocal... But you should never stop trying to find it... It may be hiding somewhere... Because if you stop believing in it, if you stop dreaming... For sure... Your dreams won't come true... You will never find the magic if you don't look for it...

So I made may decision... I want to dream with my eyes wide open, looking for magic... How about you?

BYE
MAD