I recently marked my 42nd gentleman caller — although that’s a bit of a misnomer as I had to go to him. (Driving 2 hours to date someone in NYC is normal. Driving two hours to date someone outside is to much to ask.)
The rate of gentlemen over the years has not been constant; there’s been a bit of an increase. Indeed, if this trend continues I think I may soon see my 50th “caller.”
That calls for a party, methinks. A Confirmed Bachelorette party, celebrating Half a Century of Men and Boys. Gifts not required, but welcome if they purr.
Does this signify anything? I doubt it. After all, my math shows that there must be hundreds if not thousands of bachelors in my range around. So this is more of an excuse to throw a party, and maybe get a cat, than anything else. But the big Five-Oh… surely that’s a number worth marking?
Bad for Shidduchim 
Amazing. Imagine the thousands of people a year you’ll be dating pretty soon based on this projection.
Come on, 42 wasn’t “the one”? My steadfast faith in Douglas Adams is shaken….
Badfor, I don’t know if this means anything, but I dated for about 7 years and recently did the math…I date more than 70 guys before I met the one I married. 70. More than.
I look forward to your next graph, very soon, in which you contrast your “Dates per year” with your next caller’s, i.e., your chosson’s.
You’re a very lucky girl, I recently found 5 beautiful 2 days-old kittens 🙂 and I was getting worried that I will have to keep them all … Here comes your purring gift !
Ben – oh the stress. But hey, that’s how predictions work, right? Just draw a straight line off whatever is relatively recent…
Trillian – I haven’t finished with 42 yet. I’ll keep you posted.
and i got – 70! Wow! That’s something to aspire too! And you just missed celebrating the Big Seven-Five.
Pinny – Pretty good idea. I’ll keep it in mind when we meet. Maybe we can make it a dating activity.
miaou – Whoohoo! Cats!
My graph starts off flat looking similar to yours, but except the opposite for the last few years. That’s because I dated a few girls who took up months of dating that restricted me from dating more girls (especially this past year). Based on that current projected trend, I will be dating 0 girls a year in 2 years. Does that mean I’m married or given up? 😀
iyhby:
You need to change the interval on the graph so that the drop-off is all part of the same interval that has the rise so that the last interval shows a overall rise. That way the projection is still up.
Think about it–unless you dated today, if you make the interval one day then today has no dates. And even if you dated today, if you make the interval one hour then this hour has no dates. So you just make the interval so that it shows a upward curve at the end and that makes you get more dates.
(This lawyer will now pat himself on the back for having explained how scientists are using fancy graphs to lie to us.)
I’m a lot confused being that I just stumbled upon your site. What is a “caller”, and what is the purpose? BTW, I used to be in Flatbush back in the late 1990’s (Newkirk).
Great point, Ben.
Projections are very easy to manipulate.
Ben, I’m confused. That’s even after taking stats and being shown how graphs can distort info.
Mindy,
It’s like this.
Suppose you date 1 person when you’re 18, 2 people when you’re 19, 3 people when you’re 20, 6 when you’re 21, 7 when you’re 22, and only 3 when you’re 23.
So if you plot your graph by years, then you are on an downward curve at the end. Because your data set is: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 3.
But now suppose you plot it by adding up every 2 years. So you have only 3 points on your curve and each interval represents 2 years. And your data set is now 3 (1+2), 9 (3+6), 10 (7+3). Which means it is still curving upward!
Alternatively, suppose you decide to plot it monthly. Well, I haven’t told you what month you went out in, but suppose that the 3 dates while 23 were all in the past month while all the 22 dates were spread out over a year. So now we have a sharp upward spike!
And this is despite not going to college, FTW.
“Gentleman caller” is the term used for a suitor (or, one who takes you on a date) in (I think) The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.
Newkirk, really? I’m from that area too.
I guess you can do it that way. But I started year 1 from the first girl I dated and then continued from there. The first couple years I dated basically the same number of girls and the last few years I dated fewer girls every year.
Why would anyone worry about numbers? This isn’t a numbers game, unless one is completely unable to get dates. If a person is dating fewer people because they are having more serious relationships, that might be a sign of increasing maturity – a good thing. The serious relationships are also an opportunity for self-reflection and personal growth.
It might be more enlightening to graph separately the number of people you dated a specific number of times (e.g., 2) – or a range of a number of times (e.g., 2-5, 2+). This might better display the progression of the number of “quality” suitors (with the different definitions of “quality” varying directly with number of dates you had with a person).
Also, it might also be interesting for you to see for each year the average number of dates per suitor, to see how much better matched you and your suitors have been as you get to know yourself — and your shadchanim (friends and family mostly) get to know you — better over time.
Thank you, Ben.
It’s disconcerting that one might view a long (non-abusive) relationship as a waste of time, but if the only goal is to end up married, one might see things that way. In reality, our life experiences, including relationships that don’t eventually end in marriage, shape who we are. If a relationship is godawfully horrible, I can see why a person would bemoan that it stopped them from meeting other people; but if one connected (even temporarily) with another decent person and had a good time dating that person, what is so terrible?
Just to clarify – I’m not suggesting you date not for tachlis (chas veshalom). Rather, I’m suggesting that you view your not-successful tachlis-dating relationships as something other than a waste of time, something from which you might have learned and grown, something which you might have actually enjoyed – etc.
Remarkable recordkeeping. Is a gentleman caller always someone you went met face-to-face, not online? I’m not sure how to count my GCs- the ones I met in person, talked to on skype, spoke to on the phone, emailed with for a few weeks? Why should the one I knew for half a week but met in person count more than the one I skyped/talked on the phone with for several months?
suds – I agree. There’s one guy I skyped with for three weeks, and he’s counted as a caller even though we never met. But anyone I met for a date is also counted. In short – anyone with whom I made some progress at establishing a relationship is counted as a dater.
my mother went out with 73 guys!!!!!!!! and my father was the 70th but she had already set up dates with the other 3 so she went out with them once ,then continued dating my father till they got married!!
in retrospect the irony of this post’s title burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrns in very much the best way.
it’s not really “irony” actually, unless i specifically mean “dramatic irony” of specifically the type “the audience knows what the character does not”
anyway, either way, very fitting title for this post, eh.
=))))))))))