Are there more single people than partnered people?

[LightbulbSun]

It seems like society gives off the message that if you're single, you're miserable. However, I've come under the impression recently that there are fewer people out there who are actually in happy relationships - and are having active sexual lives - than those who are unpartnered and not having sex.

 

I read a statistic once about involuntary Celibacy, and it said that 16-17% of men in the world's population never get a relationship or lose their virginity in their whole lifetime. I'm not sure about the statistic for women, but since there are women out there who face the same issues, there's probably a statistic for them, too.

 

Also, given that whenever I've been rejected by the 'boyfriend' excuse, very few times has there actually been a boyfriend. Most of the time, I just don't fit these womens' preferences, so I'm rejected.

 

What do you think? Do you think that there's a higher percentage of single and unpartnered people than there are people who are in happy relationships?

[CaptainNapalm]

My best guess is:

 

33% are single, 33% are in satisfying happy relationship, 33% are in unhappy relationships.

 

By the way, this whole 16-17% stat of men never being in a single relationship or having sex throughout their whole lifetime I think is absolutely bogus. I think it's more like 2-3% and it's not like it's some form of verifyable stat since it's technically impossible to measure.

[LightbulbSun]

My best guess is:

 

33% are single, 33% are in satisfying happy relationship, 33% are in unhappy relationships.

 

By the way, this whole 16-17% stat of men never being in a single relationship or having sex throughout their whole lifetime I think is absolutely bogus. I think it's more like 2-3% and it's not like it's some form of verifyable stat since it's technically impossible to measure.

 

I disagree with the second part. There's more people who are involuntary celibate than you'd realize.

 

And I'd agree with the first part. Probably 1/3rd are single.

[Go Habs Go]

So 1 in 6-7 never get in a relationship or lose their virginity? I find that hard to believe.

[pinkelephant]

maybe those stats included priests, monks, etc?

[Go Habs Go]

maybe those stats included priests, monks, etc?

 

 

Don't go down that road.

[CaptainNapalm]

I disagree with the second part. There's more people who are involuntary celibate than you'd realize.

 

And I'd agree with the first part. Probably 1/3rd are single.

 

I would agree that 16-17% never marry, I would maybe (big maybe) even agree that 16-17% never have intercourse, but to say that 1 in 5.8 people never have intercourse nor a relationship of any kind with someone throughout the course of their whole lifetime is in my opinion false. This stat is even more so questionable for me since it's impossible to verify by any sound means this percentage.

[SometimesShy]

I read a statistic once about involuntary Celibacy, and it said that 16-17% of men in the world's population never get a relationship or lose their virginity in their whole lifetime.

 

I think you lost a decimal point...

 

"In his book, Gilmartin estimates that love-shyness afflicts approximately 1.5% of American males and will prevent about 1.7 million U.S. males from ever marrying or experiencing intimate sexual contact with women."

 

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[dragon lady]

I know very few people people in happy relationships. Even a conservative estimate would put over 60% of couples I know in the unhappy category.

[asthesparrow]

Out of ALL the people I know, I would say there are two couples I know who are in a happy relationship (there were 3 who broke up a week ago, I called their r/ship very happy! Shame!) and about 70% of people I know are single.

This is in an age group of 19-25 though. I'm sure that makes a difference...

[thejigsup]

I don't believe these statistics. I have never known ANYONE in my entire life, outside of the clergy, who have never had sex or been in a relationship. NO ONE. Most people will be in a relationship and have a fairly happy sex life sometime in their lives. It's ridiculous to think otherwise.

[LightbulbSun]

I don't believe these statistics. I have never known ANYONE in my entire life, outside of the clergy, who have never had sex or been in a relationship. NO ONE. Most people will be in a relationship and have a fairly happy sex life sometime in their lives. It's ridiculous to think otherwise.

 

That is certainly society's stereotype, but it's not always true.

[enalover143]

I agree with most posters here...find it terribly hard to believe every 1 in 6 or 1 in 7 people NEVER have any relationships or sexual contact. For example, I work at a company with about 300 people. I find it hard to believe roughly 50 of them have never even had a kiss in life.

 

Now obviously this is a crude analogy, as the context and environment and industry of my company may affect things...but let's just say I work for a male-dominated engineering firm (i.e. nerdy engineers) and still find it VERY HARD to believe one sixth of them have never even had a guy or girl's hand. In fact, most people around here are in relationships, engaged, married, have kids, etc.

 

In a graduating college class of 1000 people, are you saying 160-170 of them, all young, virile 20-somethings, have NEVER had any intimacy with the opposite sex? I doubt it. I agree with some of the other posters who theorize the number is more in the single digits (I'm willing to give it MAYBE 5%).

 

Anyways, I guess none of this is ever truly verifiable. But I'm willing to bet my money it ain't what you said it was. I think sometimes, people in those situations find, manipulate, or even invent statistics to validate their position, situation, or belief. I'm not saying you are, but everyone does it to some extent. It's called selection bias. Go look it up. Basically, any stat, used in the right way, can be manipulated or portrayed in such a method to support your convictions.

 

Probably best to ignore stats and focus on going for what you want. Just my 2 cents.

[enalover143]

Here's a short, interesting blurb on selection bias from noted Fantasy Baseball writer Matthew Berry:

 

No stat, no projection, no analysis exists by itself. And the universe it exists in changes with every draft pick, every player purchased, and every player dropped or picked up during the season.

 

Hold those thoughts while I introduce another one.

 

The good folks over at Wikipedia describe selection bias this way: "Selection bias is a distortion of evidence or data that arises from the way that the data are collected. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term selection bias most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, due to the method of collecting samples. If the selection bias is not taken into account, then any conclusions drawn may be wrong."

 

Emphasis at the end there, once again, is all mine.

 

I study all the stats, do the research and talk to as many folks as I can, then I choose which stats I want to show/discuss/butcher. If I like the guy, it's positive stats; if I don't, I highlight the negative. I've done it below in what I've chosen to show you. And all analysts and opinion givers -- in fantasy sports or anywhere else -- do the same thing, whether they admit it or not.

 

Your job is to see whom you trust, whom you don't, whom you agree with and who you think is a moron. Take it all in and make your own call because you're the one who has to live with it.

[LightbulbSun]

In an era when sex is used to sell everything from toothpaste to transmissions, the idea that large minorities of adults might have little or no sexual contact with others seems incongruous to many people. Yet, one researcher found that as many as 16% of married couples had not engaged in sexual intercourse in the month prior to a representative national survey of U.S. residents (Donnelly, 1993). Another group of researchers reported that 14% of men and 10% of women in the U.S. had not had any sexual activity involving genital contact in the past 12 months, and that 3% had none since their 18th birthdays (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994).

 

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I can't find the article that references the 16% that never have sex in their entire life, although I did read it. And it was 16%, not 1.6%.

[BriarRose]

It would vary by age. I am in my mid-40's, so of course there are more partnered people than single. In my 20's, it seemed more people were single. But that is only my personal experience. i don't know what the official stats are.

[Mr. Franklin]

I think this is very true. We have to look at the whole picture. Look at people who suffer from deformities. They rarely find partners because they have a difficult time attracting people. Looks do matter. In order to have a relation there must be physical attraction. You may have seen an attractive person with an ugly partner, but it is not all about the personality. The attractive person just happens to be physically attracted to the ugly partner and may not admit it to people because of social reasons.

 

Now let's look at people with extreme disabilities. There are people who cannot take care of themselves because of their disabilities. They don't get to date people and have sex. Sorry to say this but it is true.

[sophie274]

I think I read in the NYTimes a while back that for the first time in a while, there were more single women than married women (of course, they could have boyfriends).

 

On the subject of involuntary celibacy, I did some digging on the internet for US Census info (this is from 2005).

 

Lightbulbsun, since you seem to be most concerned with involuntary celibacy in men (and it is likely more common, or as common, as in women), I calculated some figures for men.

 

In 2005, there were 48.5 (roughly) million men over 45 living in the US. Of those 48.5 million men, 3.5 million of them had never been married, or about 7%. Now I'm making what I think is a very small leap here, and going to go ahead and say that if the men have been married, they've likely had sex at least a handful of times with their wives! And they certainly have a relationship with a woman! So by age 45, we really cannot argue - based on this info - that more than 7% of men could possibly have never lost their virginity or been in a relationship, and personally I'm not willing to accept that ALL of the remaining men who've never been married have never had sex or been in a relationship. For example, let's not forget about the gay men who have not gotten married but might have had sex and found boyfriends.

 

The figures I have read (but can't find the source right now) in the past were that 95% of men and women in the US had been married by 50 years old. So the number of involuntary celibates would, for me, likely be closer to 1-3%, and certainly no more than 5%.

 

Here are what figures went into my calculations, and here's where I found them:

 

POPULATION COUNT

 

Age Total Male Female

 

30 to 34 years 20,705,000 10,450,000 10,255,000

35 to 39 years 21,408,000 10,727,000 10,681,000

40 to 44 years 22,963,000 11,407,000 11,555,000

45 to 49 years 21,761,000 10,731,000 11,030,000

50 to 54 years 19,043,000 9,313,000 9,731,000

55 to 59 years 15,794,000 7,661,000 8,133,000

60 to 64 years 12,106,000 5,764,000 6,342,000

65 to 74 years 18,337,000 8,349,000 9,988,000

75 to 84 years 12,869,000 5,154,000 7,714,000

85 years+ 4,713,000 1,445,000 3,269,000

Total 169,699,000 81,001,000 88,698,000

 

UNMARRIED MALES:

 

Age Never Married

 

30 to 34 3,371,000

35 to 39 2,289,000

40 to 44 1,953,000

45 to 54 2,117,000

55 to 64 757,000

65 to 74 383,000

75+ 239,000

Total 11,109,000

 

 

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(I didn't use any of the man's calculations, I just did my own). A simple fraction-percentage, and I'm fairly sure I did the calculations right!

 

So hopefully that answers that question.

 

Ok, the formatting for the figures was WAY better in my box than it looks on the thread, but I can't quite be bothered to mess with it. Hopefully it still makes sense to you.

[BriarRose]

Lightbulb, you are not a number, you are a person, and I'm sure that since you desire a partner, you will eventually find one. I don't know you as a person, so it's hard to say why you are being rejected - and how many times has this actually happened? Realistically? Are you rejected 10 times for every 10 women you ask out? What kind of women are you asking out? Where are you meeting them? There are so many factors that come into play, and to think you will die an unloved virgin I don't think is realistic. Sure, anything is possible - I could win Lotto - but it's not likely.

[LightbulbSun]

Lightbulb, you are not a number, you are a person, and I'm sure that since you desire a partner, you will eventually find one. I don't know you as a person, so it's hard to say why you are being rejected - and how many times has this actually happened? Realistically? Are you rejected 10 times for every 10 women you ask out? What kind of women are you asking out? Where are you meeting them? There are so many factors that come into play, and to think you will die an unloved virgin I don't think is realistic. Sure, anything is possible - I could win Lotto - but it's not likely.

 

 

I'm not asking out women, so I'm not being rejected. But I don't see the point in asking out women, if the result will be that I will just be rejected.

 

Honestly, I see myself just being lonely and single for the rest of my life, but that's really no fault other than my own. If I went to the gym and pumped iron, maybe I'd stand a chance. But the way I look now, I wouldn't stand a chance with the girls I'm interested in, unless they aren't shallow (and from my experience, attractive girls usually go after attractive guys.)

[bulletproof]

Now let's look at people with extreme disabilities. There are people who cannot take care of themselves because of their disabilities. They don't get to date people and have sex. Sorry to say this but it is true.

 

Ever see Kyle Maynard? He's got pretty extreme physical disabilities and I've heard interviews where he talks about dating and having girlfriends. Rosemarie Siggins, the woman with no legs, is married with two kids. Where did you get this statistic that disabled people don't get to date and have sex?

 

To the o.p.- I'm confused about why you are even researching whether there are more single people vs. coupled people. It's like you're deliberately searching for pain, to verify your negative mindset. Why not use that energy to research something that will actually help?

[NightLily]

That is certainly society's stereotype, but it's not always true.

 

If you don't mind me asking, you have mentioned this celibacy things a few times.. why do you think that is the case for you? As in, what is going against you?

 

As for happy/unhappy couples.. can't say. But the stats don't really matter. What matters is what you decide to do about it for yourself individually. If you are the type of person who would rather be single than in an unhappy relationship then you have a better chance of not ending up in that situation.

 

You also have to remember you can't always judge happiness from the outside. What might make you miserable could be a happy life for them.

[LightbulbSun]

If you don't mind me asking, you have mentioned this celibacy things a few times.. why do you think that is the case for you? As in, what is going against you?

 

I am average and nerdy looking, I have skinny arms, I'm overweight, I'm not into typical 'guy stuff', and I'm into intellectual/nerdy stuff.

 

The only thing I really have going for me is that I'm a musician, although I've been a musician since I was 13, and still haven't had a first kiss. So obviously that ain't working for me. :sad:

[NightLily]

Well nearly all of those things you can change. You can change your hair and how you dress, lose some weight, and start working out.

 

ALL of that can be changed. I'm trying to start being in better shape now if you want to join.

[newwave]

I am average and nerdy looking, I have skinny arms, I'm overweight, I'm not into typical 'guy stuff', and I'm into intellectual/nerdy stuff.

 

The only thing I really have going for me is that I'm a musician, although I've been a musician since I was 13, and still haven't had a first kiss. So obviously that ain't working for me.

 

You actually sound like the type of guy I'd personally like. How old are you? If you are say 25, I wouldn't worry. If you are 40 or above, I'd tell you to get out there and find people.

 

Interesting that the stats of never married men was posted because I just read something about that. Basically that more men are staying single than ever before. In some cases it's because they don't want to marry, but in other cases they either haven't found the right person, busy with work/school, etc. I don't really pay attention to stats because it only takes one person to fit your standards. I want a never married, no kid guy who likes the idea of eventually marrying and have kids, and though they aren't as easy to find as they were 10 years ago, they are out there, and all I want is one.