Where are the odds?

I was talking with my goldilocks the other day and she was bemoaning the lack of men in Sydney for her long single straight girlfriend. That got me thinking about the potential for keepers out there for me. How many available gay men are there out in Sydney?

Now writing about statistics in the gay world is about as challenging as talking to flamingos about algebra, but see if you can bear with me. Nearly four and a half million people live in greater Sydney, slightly under half (49%) are men – 2,162,221 according to the 2011 census. How many are gay? Sydney probably draws a few extras from across Australia so let’s be optimistic and say it’s one in ten. That means there are around 200,000 gay men in Sydney. Wow… that’s a lot more than are out on Oxford Street on any night. Where are the rest of them? Are they living quiet suburban lives a long way from the scene? But I digress.

But what about men close to my age? The census says there are around 300,000 men between 25 and 35 (333,000), or 35 and 45 (319,000), or 45 and 55 (292,000). So if we’re going with 10% gay, then about 30,000 gay men in Sydney are within 5 years of your age. Still with me?

Now the census doesn’t have reliable data about how many gay relationships there are so we have to make a few guesses about how many are single. In 2011, 40%, of men said that they were not married or in a defacto relationship. Let’s work with that. That would suggest 12,000 gay men within 5 years of your age are single. It doesn’t say if they’re looking, but so far so good: that’s heaps!

Of course you may subscribe to the belief that there’s just “the one” out there for you. I think there’s probably a few more than just one. I REALLY hope so. Think about it. How many men do you meet before one makes you think “…maybe”? How many friends of friends, tradies, waiters, flight attendants, bears, twinks, wrestlers would you meet before one of them makes you say, “WOW!”? What if you only click with one guy in every hundred? That means of the twelve thousand gay men in Sydney, 120 will be close to your age, currently unattached AND push your buttons. If you’re fussy, and you only like one in every 200, then there are only 60. In all of Sydney. Just 60. Hopefully one of them will like you back. How to find him, that’s another question entirely. Better get looking.

Or I guess you could always go the Northern Territory. With its mining industry and military bases, the Territory boasts one of the nation’s highest proportion of men at 51.6%. Now I love the NT, but as a friend of mine recently returned suggested to me “the odds are good, but the goods are odd”. Happy hunting!