Staying strong on July 6, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend lives in London and I live in LA. We met last summer and I spent all of September with him in LA and all of December with him in London. The separations are really hard on me. Really hard. I don’t want to go out with anyone else, but I feel really sad that he’s not here to share every single little thing with me and vice versa. What can I do to make myself feel better? I cry a lot and know that that doesn’t help the situation — it won’t make him be able to come out and visit any earlier. I know I have to be strong, but how do I do that? The relationship is stagnant, even though we talk and email almost every day. When I do see him, how do I make him feel that he can’t live on without me? How do I get him to talk about his feelings about me? It’s always stressful for both of us to talk about one of us leaving because we want to spend as much time together being happy and not sad? How do I alleviate some of the pain of not having him near me?

— Ina

Dear Ina,

One thing I haven’t said yet about LDRs is that some people actually do take to them sort of naturally. These folks like the built-in space and compartmentalization, the NOT having to negotiate daily life together.

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The really rather cute Peter Backus, a Ph.D. candidate in economics in England, has boldly attempted to solve one of the great mysteries of the universe, otherwise known as “Why I don’t have a girlfriend.”

To do so, he employs The Drake Equation, which “is used to estimate the number of highly evolved civilisations that might exist in our galaxy,” he writes. “I have used this approach to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. The results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.”

The equation was developed in 1961 by Dr. Frank Drake at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. The equation is generally specified as:

G = R • fP • ne • fl • fi • fe • L

where
G = The number of civilizations capable of interstellar communication
R = The rate of formation of stars capable of supporting life (stars like our Sun)
ne = The average number of planets similar to Earth per planetary system
fl = The fraction of the Earth-like planets supporting life of any kind
fi = The fraction of life-supporting planets where intelligent life develops
fc = The fraction of planets with intelligent life that are capable of interstellar communication (those which have electromagnetic technology like radio or TV)
L = The length of time such communicating civilizations survive

Backus makes the following adjustments:

G = N* • fm • fl • fA • fU • fB

where
G = The number of potential girlfriends.
R = The rate of formation of people in the UK (i.e. population growth).
fW = The fraction of people in the UK who are women.
fL = The fraction of women in the UK who live in London.
fA = The fraction of the women in London who are age-­appropriate.
fU = The fraction of age-­appropriate women in London with a university education.
fB = The fraction of university educated, age-­appropriate women in London who I find physically attractive.
L = The length of time in years that I have been alive thus making an encounter with a potential girlfriend possible.

With me so far? I am now going to attempt to apply Backus’ equation to my chance of finding a man in New York — with the following caveats. (more…)