Craigslist personals, women seeking men: woman wants man made from Unobtainium

It's a pity I couldn't write about this sooner, because the posting on Craigslist is now gone. Maybe the lady in question found her man of Unobtainium but knowing the readers of the Craigslist personals, she was most likely flagged as a bot or a bitch.

No matter, I figure it can still make an educational and hopefully an entertaining entry.

The gist of the post, from what I can remember and from what I wrote down to research later, was a 32 year old woman posting under a title that went something like, "are you what I'm looking for?"

This woman (bot? Phisher?) had a short introduction, more of a lament from her friends saying she wouldn't find this impossible man, followed up by a list of 10 qualifiers she was looking for. I forgot the 9th one but I don't think it will matter much... Because this was to be a number-crunching exercise/analysis to see if her expectations were truly epic.

The list consisted of (mostly paraphrased):
1. Height: 5'11" to 6'3"
2. Race: Black
3. College educated, presumably graduated
4. Articulate, both written and verbally
5. A credit score of 700+ (was willing to take someone with a lower one, if it was a work in progress)
6. Employed in a professional job
7. Age: 30 to 42 years old
8. Preferably no kids (but was willing to let this one slide, as long as everything was copasetic with his ex.
9. I don't remember what is was
10. knows what to expect in a interracial relationship

Let's start to this elusive man. I'll assume she posted for the entire population of the twin cities, including surrounding suburbs. That gives us a starting population of approx. 2.6 million (2000 census) to search among... but wait, men are about half of the population. 1.3 million it is.

First the height criteria: I believe the reason I got a hair up my ass about this specific personals posting was the height thing. I've complained about this in person to friends. Again, some lady is looking for someone taller than the average height of Americans, which is 5'9" and the average height for either black or white men between 20 and 39 is 5'10". So, I'm a inch shorter than the average... According to this site, there are only 5% of men who are 6'3" or taller. So, if we drop back to her lower end, that still only leaves about 25%-30% percent of men who qualify.

Going on the generous side, I say 6' (25% of the population) leaves us with 325,000 left.

Next is race. She said she was looking for a black man. I don't know if she meant African-American or recent African immigrant. But I'll assume both and use this as a population reference. It says 15.3% are of ethic origin, Hispanic, black and Asian. But using sloppy math I'll use that 15.3% to pare the population group down 325,000 x .153 = about 49,725 men, rounding up.

College educated: In the twin cities, 32.5% of it population have a Bachelor's degree or higher. 49725 x .325 = about 16161, rounding up.

Articulate, written word and verbally. I have no idea how to quantify that. Some would figure that in this pared down population, almost every single man would fit that criteria and I would tend to agree, but that would change the method of elimination from general population stats to this newly defined population. Besides, articulation is subjective.

A credit score of 700+: According to this site 'Forty percent of Americans have credit scores of 750 or higher, and another 33 percent have scores between 650 and 749'. So, I'll say about 56% have a high enough score to qualify. But she was being generous, as long as you were working on making this higher... How nice of her. 16161 x .56 = 9051 dudes, rounding up.

Employed in a professional job: Taking unemployment rates of 8.1 % in Minnesota, this gives an employment rate of 91,9%. 9051 x .919 = 8318 guys.

Age, between 30 and 42: the 2000 census (page 2) shows about 22 million of the male population was between 30 and 39. The 40 to 44 male group was another 11 million. Take half of the 40 to 44 group (5.5 million), add it to the 30 to 39 group and we get 27.5 million. Out of 281.4 million, 27.5 million is 9.77%. 8318 x .0977 = about 813 gentlemen.

The last two, 'doesn't have kids' and 'understands an interracial relationship' would probably scythe this group down more... But I think my rough math makes a point. Honestly I was surprised that there are potentially that many heroic/mythical chaps out there to fit this woman's fancy.

I'm not fully college educated but I'm glad I'm not her type.