I know you’re being tongue-in-cheek, but this is the sort of back-of-the envelope calculation that’s easily disproven with a simple sanity check. By your math there should be only 0.5 fit, college-educated single people in your age and gender bracket in any given bar on a Saturday night. That’s obviously not the case.
One clear flaw is that the bar-hopping population is not uniformly distributed between ages 0 and 80; it obviously starts around 21 and tapers off at some point. Not to mention the fact that bars have clientele; a bar that’s popular with 20-somethings won’t be as popular with the older crowd. Fitness, age, education level, and employment status are also correlated with each other.
The solution? Keep your eyes open when you’re at the bar, and strike up a conversation. Other single people will be doing the same, greatly reducing your odds of a mismatch. Fitness, age, and gender are also relatively easy to measure on average. It takes some effort, but it’s not a complete crapshoot as your comment indicates.
"By your math there should be only 0.5 fit, college-educated single people in your age and gender bracket in any given bar on a Saturday night. That’s obviously not the case."
You left out "not in a relationship" which I would give a %90 reduction in odds. Which is a major point here. Because you see people at a bar I wouldn't assume they are single.
Perhaps you’ve misread, that’s included in the ‘single’ part. Regardless, my larger point is that when you’re at a bar you’re not going to walk up to a random table and ask a guy out when he’s holding hands with some girl. People who are single and looking do just that - they look for signs that the other party may be interested. It takes some social skills, but as the original article shows a large proportion of couples meet in a bar, so clearly it’s not impossible.
Why do you think 90% of people are in relationships, especially at such a young age? I'd guess it's closer to 2/3, although I'm using anecdotal evidence.
One clear flaw is that the bar-hopping population is not uniformly distributed between ages 0 and 80; it obviously starts around 21 and tapers off at some point. Not to mention the fact that bars have clientele; a bar that’s popular with 20-somethings won’t be as popular with the older crowd. Fitness, age, education level, and employment status are also correlated with each other.
The solution? Keep your eyes open when you’re at the bar, and strike up a conversation. Other single people will be doing the same, greatly reducing your odds of a mismatch. Fitness, age, and gender are also relatively easy to measure on average. It takes some effort, but it’s not a complete crapshoot as your comment indicates.