The Numbers Game

I can remember, sometime back in the 1980's, when it seemed as though I might never find the woman of my dreams. This was curious, since at the time there was a surplus of females inhabiting the urban areas of the United States. As my wholly inept dating strategy went, it wasn't for lack of available targets, I was just afraid to take the shot. Metaphorically speaking. At a time when all my other male friends seemed to be finding Miss Right, I was contemplating a life of agitated bachelorhood. It probably didn't help that during this span I was living with a well-known Lothario. He was skewing the figures of one guy to one girl in impossible directions. I considered briefly that merely standing in his wake might avail me of some of the runoff, but that never happened.
As fate would have it, I just needed to be patient, and the Right Woman For Me was revealed and we settled down and lived happily ever after. I'm just glad I'm not Chinese. More than twenty-four million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses in 2020, state media reported on Monday, citing a study that blamed sex-specific abortions as a major factor. Strict family-planning policy, especially in rural areas, created a glut of males. And if you've ever seen a glut of males flying south for the winter, you know how stirring a sight that can be.
The skewed birth rate over the past ten years, with a ratio as high as one hundred thirty boys to every one hundred girls. It's a pretty good deal for Sadie Hawkins day, but misery for those extra guys standing there looking silly. That's why I am guessing that China will probably be one step ahead of us once again and become the largest nation on the planet to legalize gay marriage. In a country where abortions are legal and paid for by the government, it just makes godless sense.