Statistics, methodology, and honest takes on the numbers behind modern dating standards.
The pool does not dry up. It changes shape. Here are single counts by age band, the sex ratio that flips after 40, and why the same age group is 25% or 86% single depending on who is counting.
The math is identical. Only the population changes. We ran the same engine in both directions to see which filters do the damage, and whether one side really is more delusional.
Six feet, six figures, a six-pack. Somewhere between 1 in 400 and 1 in 1,000 American men clear all three. The uncertainty comes from one number nobody measures.
About 18% of adult US men earn six figures. Among full-time workers it is 28%. Among households, 34%. Same question, three correct answers, and most articles quietly pick the flattering one.
About 14.5% of US men reach 6 feet, roughly 1 in 7. Yet a third of men report being that tall. Here is the measured distribution, inch by inch, and what a six-foot filter costs you.
A plain-English tour of the engine: marginal probabilities, the income and education correlation adjustment, and the 1 to 10 scale.
Two reasonable-sounding filters, height and income, combine into a pool of well under one percent. Here is the math behind the meme.