{"id":791,"date":"2008-06-01T19:25:35","date_gmt":"2008-06-01T23:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/?p=791"},"modified":"2008-06-01T19:25:35","modified_gmt":"2008-06-01T23:25:35","slug":"missing-the-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/2008\/06\/01\/missing-the-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing the Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

This comic<\/a> was pretty funny, and the age\/2 + 7<\/em> formula got tossed around a lot by my roommates.<\/p>\n

Of course, it gives us the minimum<\/em> age one can date without being creepy. At 22, it’s [(22\/2) + 7], or 18. (I, however, maintain that this discrepancy would, in fact, be creepy.)<\/p>\n

But what about the upper<\/em> age limit? The formula itself is silent on this, but<\/em> we can easily do some substitution to make it work. If the minimum acceptable age (“M”) is your own age (“A”) divided by two, plus 7, we get:<\/p>\n

M = A\/2 + 7<\/p>\n

We typically solve for M, knowing A. However, the oldest person I could date would have my<\/em> A as their<\/em> M, e.g.:<\/p>\n

22 = A\/2 + 7<\/p>\n

With this realization, it’s a simple Algebra 1 question. Subtract 7 from both sides and then multiply by two.<\/p>\n

Thus, the maximum age one can date is 2(a-7), where a<\/em> is your age. For me, it’d be 2(22-7), or 30.<\/p>\n

What interests me, though, is that this means I’m allowed to go back four years, but forward eight, within the margin of creepiness.<\/p>\n

I built a spreadsheet for people aged 1 to 100 showing this and various other statistics. It’s online here<\/a> as an HTML document. A few interesting trends emerge that aren’t intuitively obvious working with just the formulas:<\/p>\n