This is the second in what can now officially be called a multi-part series of short insights that occur to me when I take a look at my life from a statistical point of view.

The Statistic:  Of all the weddings/wedding receptions I have been invited to in my adult life, the percentage of divorces for the ones I have been unable to attend is over 80%.

How Weird Is That?  I guess with the divorce rate these days (Studies estimate that approx. 30% of first marriages end in divorce within the first ten years), it’s not that weird. The percentage of weddings I have attended, however, is much lower, as is my overall rate (which is under 15% in total).

What Does It Mean?  Again, probably not a whole lot. Thinking upon the individual weddings/receptions that I could not attend, the reasons were almost always financial or work-related as to why I could not attend. There was only one wedding that I did not attend because I explicitly didn’t want to go (that one, incidentally, ended in divorce).

Taking this evidence alongside Part 1 and something I may discuss in Part 3 (if there is a Part 3), there is a slight case to be made that I am, in fact, a harbinger of love/doom, and that my blessing upon ye can make or break your own marital bliss. But all of the evidence is generally circumstantial to this point, and should not be taken seriously until further evidence can be collected.

What Have I Learned? I have been to a LOT of weddings. Which makes me wonder where all my frequent flier miles have gone.

This is the first in a potentially multi-part series of short insights that occur to me when I take a look at my life from a statistical point of view.

The Statistic:  For about a five year period in my life, every woman I dated subsequently met/dated/married their husband immediately following our “relationship”.

How Weird Is That?  Weird enough that I still remember it several years later.

What Does It Mean?  Hard to say, exactly. First off, it’s important to point out that this isn’t an inherently large sample size, so there’s a pretty big chance of this being somewhat random.

It is important to point out, however, that the length of the relationship doesn’t seem to matter, since these “relationships” varied from a single date (which is why “relationship” is in quotes – that doesn’t really count as much of anything) to not quite a year.

It is probably more of an insight into the type of women I was meeting/dating at the time – or at least, where most of them tended to be in their lives – in all likelihood, they were starting to get to the point where they wanted to settle down, whereas I most certainly was not (a fact which directly led to the end of one of these aforementioned relationships). Verification of this theory, however, seems unlikely, as the women did not respond to requests for comment.

What Have I Learned?  Not much, probably. Besides understanding what this says about where my own emotional space was during this period of time (when marriage/settling down was not something I was particularly worried about), this statistical trend probably is more about my greater social circle at the time than anything else. For example, further analysis doesn’t suggest that my “type” has changed significantly, which means that the circumstances around me are more than likely responsible for the shift.

On that note, the end of this period in time also happened to coincide with moderate changes in living, financial, and social circumstances, so really all this does is point to a specific point in my life as a pivot moment for me.  But more on that later.

So Was This Exercise Worth It?  Maybe. It’s an interesting way to consider the past, I think. If I can identify other interesting trends I’ll continue.