The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox

Slate has just published an article that may be of interest to the dorks and social scientists intellectually curious readers of our site. It's titled "The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox: How economics and game theory explain the shortage of available, appealing men." The article, by Mark Gimein, opens:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the available, sociable, and genuinely attractive man is a character highly in demand in social settings. Dinner hosts are always looking for the man who fits all the criteria. When they don't find him (often), they throw up their hands and settle for the sociable but unattractive, the attractive but unsociable, and, as a last resort, for the merely available.

The shortage of appealing men is a century-plus-old commonplace of the society melodrama. The shortage—or—more exactly, the perception of a shortage—becomes evident as you hit your late 20s and more acute as you wander into the 30s. Some men explain their social fortune by believing they've become more attractive with age; many women prefer the far likelier explanation that male faults have become easier to overlook.

The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?

Actually, no—and here's why. [read on]

If we were more clever, we might have something funny to say about the subject.

A Singles Map of the United States

Richard Florida is the author of the national bestsellers, The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class. His new book, Who’s Your City? is about the way people choose the places they live and how that affects everything from their real estate to their families.

In an article accompanying this map--
--Florida writes:

Which of these two decisions do you think has a bigger impact on someone's life: finding the right job, or finding the right significant other? No one's going to argue with the notion that where you live affects your employment prospects. But the place you call home has a lot to do with your chances of finding the right partner as well. Having an enticing "mating market" matters as much or more than a vibrant labor market.

It's not just that some places have more singles than others. If you're a single man or a single woman the odds of meeting that special someone vary dramatically across the country. [read on]

We need to re-assess our 2008 tour plans for The Single Guy...

Like cuttin' the steel band on a bale of cottton

"That's the scary thing about women," the day fireman volunteered, putting up three fingers to ask for his draw. "Marryin' 'em is just like cuttin' the steel band on a bale of cottton. First thing you know, you've got a roomful of woman."

--from "Died and Gone to Vegas" by Tim Gautreaux, collected in Same Place, Same Things (St. Martin's Press, 1996)

Single guy named "U.N. messenger of peace"

Reuters reports that famous single guy George Clooney has been named U.N. messenger of peace:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named actor George Clooney, who has campaigned for refugees in Darfur, as a U.N. "messenger of peace" on Friday to promote the world body's peacekeeping efforts. [read on]

Does this mean we'll have to re-work the poster?

Nah ... probably not.

One man's one-night stand is....

Stephen Marks is a political consultant with a specialty in negative advertising which he writes about in the book, Confessions of a Political Hitman.

Deborah Solomon of the New York Times Magazine interviewed Marks about his work and his book. Two of their exchanges:

Have you sent [your parents] a copy of your book?

No. Not yet. I’m a little nervous about how they may react to the personal content.

Yes, you do write about an alarming number of one-night stands.

That’s kind of trashy-sounding. I would prefer to say I haven’t yet found the right woman to settle down with.

"I haven’t yet found the right woman to settle down with" is another way to characterize the "one-night stand?"

Thanks a lot, Stephen Marks -- that's just the kind of bad PR that'll hurt single guys everywhere.

books that explore marriage with uncommon clarity?

Some blogger ran across a short list of "works [that] explore marriage with uncommon clarity" and posted a link to it on his blog.

We did a quick canvas of everyone at Darkbloomz HQ (who survived the New Year festivities) to see who has read these great works.

The results?

Zero.

Not one of us had read any of the books.

And The Single Guy says he's proud of it.

Sigh....

Wedding vows: "for better or girth"

"Many married and single people in their late teens and early 20s gain a significant amount of weight — an average of 15 to 30 pounds — over five years. But newly married men and women in that age group gain 6 to 9 pounds more than their peers who are single and dating," reports USA Today.

Not a reason to stay single, but....

Read the article: "Gain a spouse and you'll likely gain some pounds, too, in first 5 years of marriage," USA Today, October 23, 2007.

Michelle Pfeiffer forces a re-write of "TSG"

Eagle-eyed audiences who have checked out our poster have noticed the reference (in the bottom right corner) to "St. George: The Patron Saint of Singletons?"

In the act, TSG does indeed riff on the subject of George Clooney and what he teaches us about single life.

In fact, The Single Guy reveals the complex formula that allows you to calculate your bachelor friends' "Clooney number" ... and why, although he has been married, George Clooney has a very high score.

But Michelle Pfeiffer has now revealed that we need to recalibrate the formula. Her bet with Clooney about if and when he will marry again is up to $100,000, a considerable bump from when we invented the formula.

It's probably not the last time "Get me rewrite!" will ring out at Darkbloomz HQ....

Did they steal our cover idea...

...and travel back in time and print this The Harvard Lampoon (1972) parody?

Apparently, you can buy the real deal via eBay: the current price is $14.95 plus $5.00 S&H. Which is about what we're going to charge for The Single Guy posters ... if our lazy PR person [ahem] ever gets his act together.

The centerfold in this "issue" of the Lampoon/Cosmopolitan: Henry Kissinger.

The Boston Globe has the story:

What kicked off the magazine's emergence into a more flamboyant sense of humor was the 1960 parody of the literary magazine the Saturday Review. Editors at Mademoiselle liked it so much that they asked the Lampoon staff if they wanted to do a parody of the fashion magazine's notoriously slow-selling July issue.

The idea was to take the essence of Mademoiselle - demure, fashion-conscious - and spin it. So the Lampoon editors stuck a fly on the nose of the cover model's Audrey Hepburn-like face. An ad for a svelte woman with gargantuan feet asks: "Why does she look so trim? It's her new Merrimold. It redistributes fat discreetly."

The success of that first fake issue led to requests from Mademoiselle for two more summer parody issues. Emboldened, the Lampoon guys (the magazine had an all-male staff until 1972) romped through the whole world of publishing, parodying Playboy, Time, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, and The New York Times over the next decade. The most memorable was the fake Cosmopolitan magazine in 1972, which featured a "centerfold" of Henry Kissinger (his head, someone else's naked body).

(Hat tip to Gawker)

Ali Larter ...

... hasn't seen the show yet, but if her people call our people we can hook her up with tickets.

Did you know?:

*Ali Larter is a Jersey girl.

*In November 1996, Larter portrayed the hoax model Allegra Coleman in Esquire magazine which told of the fictional model's relationship with David Schwimmer, how Quentin Tarantino broke up with Mira Sorvino to date her, and Woody Allen's overhaul of a film to have her star. Even after the hoax had been revealed, its effects lingered, and various talent agencies sought to represent the nonexistent Coleman.

*Larter was featured as #6 in Maxim's Hot 100 for 2007.