Some reactions and surprises:
-- Overall, the responses look surprisingly consistent across groups, especially given the small sample.
-- Respondents were consistent in estimating that more people could be happy with them than vice versa, and that more people would consider them “marriage material” than vice versa. This could be seen as overconfidence, and undoubtedly there is some of that, but I also suspect that the type of people who read blogs like this one would have higher-than-average status in the marriage market, not just because this blog is frickin’ awesome, but because if you are the type of person who goes out of your way to think about the type of questions that are asked on blogs like this one, then you are probably doing alright in life.
-- All but two people estimated that less than a quarter of the population would consider them marriage material. And all but two said that they would consider less than 10% of the population marriage material.
-- Check out the raw data for some interesting responses to these questions: (1) your reasoning for choosing the percentages you did, (2) what you think makes for a "happy" marriage, and (3) what you think makes someone "marriage material."
-- The most interesting response came from a 28 year old single male. He estimates that 90% of the female population could have a happy marriage with him, but only 1% would consider him marriage material. His explanation made me want to give him a hug:
I chose the percentages I did because I don't think there are that many people out there who would marry me. I know, sad. But I wouldn't marry a lot of them either. So maybe I'm just supposed to be alone.
***
My responses were pretty well in line with others’, although, surprisingly, I was the pickiest of the bunch when it came to the percentage I would consider marriage material (0.5%). This is probably my fault for not paying close enough attention or probing deeply enough, but there just seems to be a disturbing dearth of people that I find interesting, and I wouldn’t want to marry someone that I didn’t feel I could at least have interesting conversations with.
I was also one of only a couple of people who said that the percentage that could be happy with me is less than the percentage that I could be happy with (2% vs. 5%). I think it would take a rare bird to be happy with me because I am pretty self-absorbed, moderately reclusive, overly philosophical/logical, and more than a little eccentric. (Now that I think about it, the percentage should probably be considerably less than 2%. Sigh.) That said, I estimate that a reasonably high percentage of women would consider me marriage material (20%) because ladies seem to dig a tall guy with a stable job, a cute dog, and a willingness to laugh at himself. (But they so don’t know what they’d be getting into...)
