A Life of Despair

(Dangerfield BSc, Registered Scientician, #13. 2008)


I saw an advertisement on the internet for a ‘pheromone spray’ that allegedly increases one’s chances with women. Is there any scientific basis for this kind of thing? (Dave Walters, Opoho)

Well, while some companies claim that their sprays contain pheromones that arouse the opposite sex, as of yet no scientific study has been able to back up these claims. But in your case, Dave, I’m afraid that your question is irrelevant. No amount of spray, ointment or cologne can change the fact that the chance of you, Dave Walters, ever finding a woman is effectively zero. This crushing fact is the culmination of six years’ hard work for two Dunedin-based statisticians, Dr. George Anderson and Dr. Amy Fitzsimons. The pair has recently published a paper entitled A Life of Despair: A Multivariate Analysis of Dave Walters, in which they use a variety of statistical methods to show that the probability of you ever finding true love is less than 0.0001 – even less than the chance of seeing a balanced report on Fox News.

In the initial stages of their research, the pair discovered that every past encounter you have had with a female has been hilariously awkward and incompetent. Extrapolating from this data, they began to suspect that a meaningful relationship between you and a woman could never happen. This suspicion was confirmed with the help of linear regression. “If we plot the number of girlfriends (N) Dave has ever had at certain points in time (t) and then calculate the line of best fit, we obtain the equation N = 0” says Dr. Anderson. “In other words, the number of girlfriends Dave has had will stay at zero as t tends towards infinity, by which time Dave will have long since died, miserable and alone.” Of course, there were a number of other factors that led the pair to their conclusion. These included your awkward mannerisms, irritating laugh and inability to speak without spraying crumbs everywhere.

Dr. Fitzsimons points out that with such tests there is always the danger of drawing false conclusions. “It was possible that, despite our rigorous calculations, Dave could still one day find true love. Dave’s inability to get a woman could have been due to a number of random factors beyond his control, rather than his numerous shortcomings as a human being” she says. However, a quick look at the state of your toenails soon confirmed that their conclusion was indeed correct.

The pair has also produced several other meaningful statistics about your life. For example, the probability that you will ever find a fulfilling job is less than 0.05, while the probability that your friends laugh at you behind your back is 0.99 (i.e. near-certain). So Dave, regardless of how effective they might be to most people, there is not a single spray in the world that can save you from a pathetic life of misery. Thanks for writing in!