Odds to find an Asiatic girlfriend in Mauritius
16. Jan, 2010 
10 Comments
Peter Backus, a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick, modified the Drake equation to obtain an estimate of the odds of finding a girlfriend in the UK. I will adapt his method to determine the odds of finding an Asian-looking girlfriend in Mauritius.
The Drake equation is used to find a serious estimate of the number of evolved extraterrestrial civilisations that might exist in the Milky Way. The equation was developed by Dr Drake in 1960.
This equation is generally written as
N = R* fp ne fl fi fe L
where
N = the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way with which communication might be possible,
R* = the rate of star formation per year in the Milky Way,
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets,
ne = the average number of exoplanets that have the potential to support life per star that has planets,
fl = the fraction of the above that has actually developed life at some point,
fi = the fraction of the above that has actually developed intelligent life,
fc = the fraction of ET civilizations that has developed radio communication, and
L = the length of time such ET civilizations emit detectable signals into space.
Following Backus’s approach, we can re-define the parameters as follows:
N = The number of potential Asian-looking girlfriends
R* = The rate of formation of people in Mauritius
This is about 25,000 people per year in the 80s.
fw = The fraction of Mauritians who are female
Since I am heterosexual, I will focus on the female group. (0.51)
fm = The fraction of Mauritian women who live in the island of Mauritius
I do not want to spend air or boat tickets to go regularly to Rodrigues. (0.97)
fa = The fraction of Mauritian women living in the island of Mauritius who are age-appropriate
Being in the mid-twenties, I’d rather look for a twenty-something woman. I do not want to out of touch since I haven’t read the latest Twilight novel, nor do I want to end up with a milf. Let’s say I am looking for a woman between 20 and 29 years of age. (0.17)
fh = The fraction of age-appropriate Mauritian women who live in the island of Mauritius who have an Asiatic trait
I am not trying to be communalist here, but I was lacking a parameter I could quantify. You can substitute 1.0 here if you do not care about the race. (0.72)
fb = The fraction of age-appropriate Asiatic female who live in the island of Mauritius who I find physically attractive
Crucial for choosing a girlfriend. This is a rather subjective parameter. I would say, just like Peter Backus, that I find 1 in 20 age-appropriate Asian-looking female living in Mauritius physically attractive. (0.05)
L = The length of time, in years, I have been looking for one
Euh, let’s say 10 years.
The new equation is
N = R* fw fw fa fh fb L
Plugging in the values, I get N = 25,000*0.51*0.97*0.17*0.72*0.05*10 = 757.
So there are 757 Asian-looking potential girlfriends in Mauritius. This is about 0.06% of the population of Mauritius. This does not seem so bad at first: it’s roughly 6 out 10000 people. But this does not take into account the fraction of these women who will find me attractive (depressingly low, to plagiarise Backus), the fraction of these females who will be single and the fraction of these who I can get along with.
So, if 1 in 20 of these women find me attractive, half are single and I can get along with 1 in 10 of them, this decreases this girlfriend pool to … 2. So there are only two Asian-looking girls in the whole of Mauritius who could be my girlfriend!
now there’s something I can wrap my head around. Good job. and makes perfect sense.
Can i get a one small photo from your blog?
Thanks
Kicker
Which photo do you want to use?
Haha…now this is cool
See da positive side, instead of just one, you can have two gfs 
Hi, how are you? I truly like ur blog! I was wondering if you might help me (I am positive your other readers might also be curious). I would also like to get involved in writing a blog also and I currently have a blog with wordpress, but it is very difficult for me to use and I would like to try to get some training materials or courses (hopefully free) that can hopefully assist me in making use of word press correctly. As a Word Press webmaster yourself, do u maybe know where i can find tutorials to do this myself?? Thanks Alot!
Hi Richie
I have not used any WordPress tutorials. I found the interface very intuitive and used it straight-away. (I used another blogging platform before though)
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