Statistically speaking

In my divorce recovery course, the topic of last week’s meeting was ‘New Relationships’. During the lecture, they trotted out a whole lot of numbers, like the percentage of divorced people who eventually remarry and the disturbingly high percentage of second marriages that fail*. It seems it’s not a particularly good idea to get involved in a relationship too soon after your marriage has gone swimming with the sewer alligators.

But how soon is “too soon”? How long before you are “ready” to hit the dating scene again? This is where it got really interesting, because according to the speaker, you need to wait about one year for every four years that you’ve been married.

The sudden pressure drop in the room caused by twenty sets of lungs simultaneously drawing a disbelieving breath was enough to make my ears pop momentarily. My initial reaction (after doing some hasty mental arithmetic) was “Hmm… that gives me a good few years to kick back before anyone suspects that I’m just loafing, not recovering”. It was immediately obvious, however, that nobody else shared my point of view. When the initial shock had worn off a bit, I noticed at least two thirds of the people furtively glancing around in manner that clearly suggested they had fallen foul of the 4:1 ratio.

Gluttons for punishment, apparently.

* We’re all fucked, basically.