Math and mojo

Want to know your chances of finding a perfect romantic match?

Choose carefully. You might not like the answer.

Here, Salon links to an interesting essay where a PhD candidate in economics uses an equation to determine his likelihood of finding a girlfriend.

He plugs in factors like age, location and education level.

The result? A 0.0000034 shot at success.

Then comes the follow-up: Theoretically, love's a little more complicated than that. You don't always fall for people who are your perfect matches on paper.

If I wrote down all my ideal qualities in a mate -- and demanded all future relationships adhered to that definition -- I'd probably end up with pretty poor odds.

The essay prompted some pretty interesting discussions, with people wondering how much you have to compromise your list of desired qualities to find a stable long-term relationship.

Thoughts?