How to use math to find the perfect partner

Mathematics and love are two of the most complicated topics on the planet. There are many branches of mathematics, and it is possible to specialize in one or two branches, but not in all of them. Quadratic formulas, logarithms, algorithms, Geometric proofs and many other mathematical concepts can drive someone crazy.

Brilliant mathematicians out there in the world can do the most complicated stock market derivative formula in their sleep. And these geniuses would not want to try their hand at figuring out love.

Love is a completely different topic on its own. Human beings have lauded and praised true love in all its forms. We have loved the concept of love ever since we learned how to play an instrument or write a poem.

Love is messy, difficult, invigorating, empowering, and can drive a person mad. When two people truly love each other, they can either spend a lifetime together. But when two people do not love their partner as much as they love themselves, nothing but tragedy awaits them.

Why in the world would anyone try to combine both math and love?

Some crazy people out in the dating world have combined math and love together. How in the world would do something like that? Well, they use the power of mathematics and statistics to find a partner for themselves or to help others find a partner that will stay with them from I do until death do they part.

Is it possible to use mathematical concepts like Pi, Avogadro's constant, and some physical analysis to find your perfect partner?

Let's find out!

How to use math to find the perfect partner?

The first thing we need to do is create a respectable age range. Sorry, true love cannot happen between a twenty-one-year-old college cheerleader and a 68-year-old yacht owner. If they have an arrangement to interact with each other, then that's perfectly fine with us. But let's not paint stripes on a horse and call it a zebra. No one is in love with this arrangement.

So how does a person figure out the age of the youngest person in their dating range? Well, they can take their age, divide it by 2 and then add 7.

So, if you are 35 years old, then divide 35 by 2 to get 17.5. We will round up to 18. Then, add 7 to get 25!

A 35-year-old person can date someone who's 25 and older. We're not sure what a 35-year-old would have in common with a 25-year-old, as they are in completely different life stages. 25-year-old is not completely unreasonable. The 35-year-old will have to endure a few father or mother figure jokes, but at least they won't be the adult babysitting a bunch of children at the club.

Now it is time to calculate the maximum age of the person that you can date. So, let's return to the example of the 35-year-old. It's perfectly fine for the 35-year-old to date a 25-year-old. But what age is too old for them? To calculate the maximum age limit, take the age of the person and then subtract 7. 35 - 7 is 28, then multiply that number by 2 so 28 * 2 is 56.

A 35-year-old person can date anyone who is up to 56 years old. That may seem like a wide age gap, but someone ‌ aged 35 already knows it themselves quite well. Regarding the 56-year-old, any person at this age no longer wants children. They are settled in their career and are perhaps looking forward to retirement.

If a 35-year-old person does not want to have kids and is cementing themselves in their profession, they have more income with a 56-year-old than they think.

So, a 35-year-old has a dating range of 25 to 56 years old.

Society used to say that a couple should be within seven years of each other. By using this rule, a 35-year-old can date anyone between the ages of 28 to 42. This age range is much smaller.

Some people have their own personal age range. Many people won't date anyone who is 10 years older than they are. Also, people go through different traumas at different stages in their life. Some people don't mature as fast as others.

Someone who's 26 years old can be as mature as a 42-year-old. But is that a problem for the 24-year-old or the 42-year-old? Who knows? We are not therapists.

The Mathematics of Love

Every few years, some crazy company thumbs up with a mathematical formula to help people find their perfect partner. 2017 was one of those years. A mathematician named Hannah Fry created a mathematical process to help people find love.

No, she did not create this formula for money or to sell a program for the lonely and wanting. She is actually an educator, and she created this formula in her own time. She presented her mathematical formula to the world when she was invited by TED to do a TED Talk.

Here is a synopsis of her amazing Ted Talk. You should go watch it when you finish what you came to do with our site’s help.

Hannah opens her TED Talk by referencing an important paper written by Peter Backus. The paper is called Why I don't have a girlfriend. In his paper, Peter is trying to find a lifelong partner. So, he takes the population of marriageable women in the UK and narrows down the population by using the characteristics that are important to him. By the end of the process, there are only 26 women he can pursue to find a wife.

This seems like a fascinating paper.

But she reminds the audience that love isn't just numbers. Human emotions and connections cannot be perfectly predicted or designed.

So, Hannah provides her audience with her Top Three Mathematically Verifiable Tips for Love. Each of these three tips are based in math and statistics that she has formulated herself.

Tip #1 - How to win at online dating

Looks aren't everything. It turns out that people who are not that attractive or are only attracted to some people received nearly as many or even more private messages then people who are attractive. If someone is very attractive, other people who are interested in them will be intimidated by their beauty and attractiveness. But if you're slightly attractive, you will receive more messages because your attractiveness is not intimidating.

People who are slightly attractive will have a larger difference in facial structure and features than people who are very attractive and approved by society's standards. Also, attractive people should take their feature that separates them from the other attractive people and really highlight them. It will help people who like you find you faster and you won't waste time on people who don't find you attractive.

Tip #2 How to find the perfect partner

Everyone has a perfect dating window in which they can find a partner. Hannah says that you should have an optimal dating window and then reject everyone in the first 1/3 of that window.

If you want to get married by the time you are forty and you're currently 30, then you must reject even within the first three years. Then when you are 34, you find someone who is slightly better than all the people you rejected in those first three years, and you marry them. She says this method is a bit risky, but you have to end somewhere.

Also, you must be actively dating people in the first 3 years. You just can't date one or two people and then marry the third person when you're 34. This will give you time to help you establish what you want and don’t want in a partner.

Tip #3 and probably the most important – How to not get divorced

How one partner influences the other partner's mood, and the marriage is important to the longevity and survival of a marriage. So, if a wife can handle a lot of the husband's negativity and vice versa, the marriage should last a long time, right?

However, Hannah says the exact opposite is true. When the partner feels free enough to complain about the small things that their partner does, the marriage lasts much longer than the marriages of couples who do not complain until there is a massive issue.

The love equation

No, the title above is not the terrible Hallmark movie about two mathematicians falling in love. Forget what we said, that movie idea sounds amazing! Actually, there are several ways to write: I love you in mathematical formulas. You may have seen some of these love formulas while you were in middle or High School.

This is one of the most popular equations whose answer means I love you.

9x- 7i < 3 (3x -7u)

9x - 7i < 9x - 21u

-7i < -21u

i <3 u

I love you!

Do you get it? The lowercase i is the I, the lesser than three forms a heart symbol and the u sounds for you!

Also, there is a number that represents love. It is 143. Here is how the number works: 1 for the word I, 4 for the four letters in the word love, and 3 for the three letters in the word you.

143 = I love you. There's no variation in this formula!

What about the statistics of marriage?

We've heard the same phrase repeated over and over again. Half of all marriages end in divorce. But what else can we learn about marriages through the power of statistics? Well, there's a lot to learn about marriages when we quantify population samples and place them in a nice graph.

First, half of first marriages will last at least 20 years. So, if you have a friend who is in their first marriage and they're getting divorced within three years, there were likely some severe red flags that should have been addressed before they got married.

Another stat to know about marriages is if a woman has a college education, she is 80% likely to remain married after 20 years. This is an eye-catching statistic compared to the ever repeated "one in two marriages will end in divorce." But completing a college education provides the woman and the man with more time to get to know who they are as a person. Men and women in college will date others and know what they like and dislike in a partner.

Compared to their college-educated sisters, women who only have a high school degree will have a 60% chance of divorcing within 20 years.

If you are 25 years old and you have a college degree, there's a 65% chance that you're already married. But if you only have a high school degree, then you only have a 53% chance of being married when you're 25.

The demographic, with the best chance of staying married after two decades, are Hispanic males. They are 62% more likely to stay married for 20 years.

Conclusion

Finding love isn't easy. Not only do we have to pick up a partner who is wonderful, honest, attractive to us, and hardworking, we need to find someone that also loves us for who we are. Nobody wants to tie the knot with someone who is planning to change their partner. It would surprise you at how many people have a fix it attitudes regarding the shortcomings of their partner.

Also, to find someone that is good for you, you must know yourself. If you try to find someone without knowing who you are inside, the math won't add up. So, remember to play up any of your best traits, establish your deal breakers and personal boundaries, and keep an open mind. You'll see me walking down the aisle or waiting at the end of the aisle for the one constant in your life, your life partner.