The Six Sigma Dating Game

It is an occupational hazard of performance improvement types (like Black Belts) to foist process improvement concepts upon unsuspecting friends and, perhaps more dangerously, family members (i.e. “Honey, I may not have taken the garbage out today but 96.7% of the time, I do!”).

The Globe and Mail ran a fun article whereby they devised a semi-serious dating calculator” to estimate the number of potential dating matches you might find in any given Canadian city given your selection criteria.

They used Statistics Canada data from 3,800 cities and towns and then created an algorithm to filter the number of people in the city down to a very short list of “matches” for a given person’s factors.

The author, Stuart A. Thompson, estimates, for example, that if you are from Toronto, are a female seeking a male, are “not picky,” as long as the guy is between 35 and 45 with a university education, that “for every 79 people you meet in Toronto only one is a match,” which works out to 1.26% of the population of Toronto.”

The calculator is found here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/love-by-numbers-the-globe-crunches-how-many-potential-dates-youll-really-find-out-there/article19633351/

Your correspondent urges caution in using such statistics, however, well-intended, at your next cocktail party.