Too Many Choices...

Apparently Time magazine has their finger on the heartbeat of the American single's scene. I found this article interesting and I'm giving you the most relevant bits. For the whole article go to: Advice for the New Dating Game By Belinda Luscombe Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1879191,00.html

"Some of them are respected scientists. Some of them are psychologists. At least one of them is a briefly married former TV-morning-show host. A surprising number of them are stand-up comedians. And they all want to give you dating advice. If you're single and don't wish to be, have they got a TV show/book/scientific theory for you! As if you haven't suffered enough.

According to the most recent census figures, about 84 million Americans ages 20 to 75 are unmarried or separated. Even if only half of them want to find a spouse, that's a nice fat target for the media to aim at in a market where such uniformity of desire is rare. So while dating and mating instructions are probably as old as Australopithecus (Tip 1: "Stand up straighter"), right now the advice-o-meter is running hot. When a coupling manual turned movie--He's Just Not That Into You--is a box-office hit, something's up.

How bad is the dating scene? Bad enough that a production company believes it can find four adults willing to have spouses chosen for them by their friends and family, marry them and allow their subsequent domestic life to be broadcast on CBS. (Because what could possibly go wrong in your first year of wedlock to a stranger?) Other lonely hearts have already submitted to having their mate-finding woes aired on cable. Yes, there have been dating shows before, but none quite so DIY as three offered by FLN, the network formerly known for fancy cooking and curtain-choosing. Wingman, in which comedian Michael Somerville acts as a dating sidekick, premiered Feb. 10. How to Find a Husband, a British import, arrives in April. The network is also developing Love Taxi, in which a cab driver plays matchmaker. Dating, camera, New York City taxi--the discomfort trifecta."

(This next paragraph I find the most interesting)
"Has it come to this? Is dating really that hard? Sociologists have long agreed that the two key factors of mate choice are proximity and timing. We choose from those around us, generally two to five years after we finish our education. But at least one of those pillars is eroding. Online dating has meant that our pool of potential mates is much bigger. The opportunity cost of giving up on a potential suitor is lower. And it's more work to find the wheat in all that chaff.

This is made more complicated by our new living patterns, says New York University sociologist Dalton Conley, whose book Elsewhere, U.S.A. examines how our work and domestic realms collide. "Social proximity is more defining now," he says. "It's class- or occupation-based. Doctors marry doctors instead of nurses." Conley points out that in the past 30 years, the social norms for mate selection have completely flipped: there are fewer prohibitions on whom you can marry, most women work outside the home, and the digital dating landscape is a whole new terrain. "The last change of this significance was the introduction of the Pill," he says."

-Ok back to me, so I have long thought the dating pool is just too big. There are too many choices, it's overwhelming. People aren't willing to take the time to get to really get to know people, they just move on because there is a never ending stream of single people or as I like to joke, a never ending stream of 18 and 19 year old girls at institute or in the single's ward! But doesn't that really define our generation, the phrase "too much?"We are the "Too much Generation" and now it's coming to back to bite us in the butt.

For more single's statistics- see my topics side bar on the right.

Just the Facts Ma'am

Here are a few statistics about single women and marriage in the U.S. I found them interesting and enlightening, I thought you might feel the same way.

As of 2003 there was 147.8 million females in the U.S. I guess that included children as well since the population then was about 295,000,000. Of that number of females 53.5 million were unmarried (including widows, divorcees, and never marrieds), and 62.9 were married. (I think the remaining 31.4 million are under the age of 15).
54% of Single Americans are women and there is an average of 86 unmarried men to every 100 unmarried women in the U.S. That sounds really bad, but also think of all the elderly women that are widowed. There are twice as many women as there are men in the 85 and older category. Also by state the numbers change. Rhode Island has only 79 unmarried men to every 100 women, while Alaska has 114 men to every 100 women. Of course not all these men are really eligible-some are in prison, which skews the real dating numbers!
But I think most interesting are the median ages of first marriages for people in the US in the past 100 or so years. Just remember median age is not the average, but the midpoint of all first marriage ages.
Median age at 1st marriage:
Men Women
1890 26.1 22
(Now things get interesting, the median age drops steadily until 1956 when it begins makes a steady rise.)
1947 23.7 20.5
1950 22.8 20.3
1969 23.2 20.8
1977 24 21.6
1985 25.5 23.3
1999 26.9 25.1
2003 27.1 25.3

So our grandgrandparents were married later in life than our grandparents and parents! The interesting thing will be to see if these ages for women keep rising or if they will level off. Soon maybe the median age for first marriages for women will be 30!

For more stats check out these websites:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2003/cb03ff03.html
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/002265.html

Where the Boys Are...

As a single gal it's sometimes hard to make plans for your life, because somewhere in the back of your mind you're thinking about getting married. It doesn't seem like the two activities should be exclusive of one another, but when you're planning your life you may not want to make plans that will hinder your chance for marriage or make plans that you won't be able to complete if you do get married and want to start a family. This is especially true for the single LDS woman.

Many of us are intelligent, independent, educated women that have lots of dreams and ambitions. But lets say one of these dreams is to join the Peace Corps, that's a dandy goal and all but how many single LDS young men do you think you're going to meet in your three years in the bush? Well unless you take one with you, then probably none. Maybe you'll love your time in Africa or whatever far flung place, but you basically are taking yourself off the market for three years. Now that is an opportunity cost. Is that fair? No. Is that reality? Pretty much yes. Hmm...
Ok so lets say your goal is not so exotic. Maybe you just want to get out of Utah and move back East. That may be a good plan, but is it practical for the marriage minded? Let's refer to some real statistics. I present a chart from National Geographic published in Feb 2007. For a better image you can go to the site
http://catholicgauze.blogspot.com/2007/01/go-east-young-man.html
As you can see there are a lot more single women than men Back East (and in Provo) then there are in Mesa, Las Vegas, Dallas and most of California. So this may throw a wrench in your plans. You may have always wanted to live Boston, but if you do you may be spending more time with your girlfriends than with actual dates. Now this matter is even more complicated for the unmarried LDS gal because the majority of LDS members also live in the Western United States. While I couldn't find the map of US LDS membership that I have seen, I'll give you the salient information. Utah had about 75% LDS population while Massachusetts had about a 1% LDS population.
So what does a young spinster do? Take a risk delaying marriage or plant herself firmly where the single LDS men are? Well either option doesn't guarantee that your will find a spouse, but unless you have inspiration one way or the other, it's something to think about. And that's what this blog is all about, to think about the issues facing LDS spinsters. I personally would go out and live your dreams and hope for the best, but of course I am still single. :) Ladies, have any of you out there had to make that choice? What were the results?