I don't remember the precise moment I discovered there wasn't enough love to go around, but I do distinctly remember the look of panic on every woman's face in the room that day. Even in my prepubescence, I got the picture. If what my informant was saying was true, and there was a man deficit in America, I better get mine. Even if it meant clawing my way to the man pool.

The "Women Outnumber Men" statistic has been around as long as I've known where babies came from. Which my mother attempted to explain, to my horror, one fateful 4th Grade day. 27 years later, the statistic is still circulating. And it changes depending on who's doing the circulating. Sometimes women outnumber men 7:1, sometimes 4:1, sometimes 3:1. But the message is the same. Someone's getting the shaft.

It's a subtle but pervasive message. I remember Bob Luman telling me with his Billboard topping hit: "Lonely women make good lovers. They're all at the mercy of a good looking smooth talking man." God, I hoped I wasn't gonna be one of those women. Because, according to Bob, if "my lips were wet with wine when it came to loving time, I'd trade my pride for something warm to hold."

Horrors! My pride, Bob? 

When I was a little older, I found out "all the good men were either gay or married." Wait...what? They're already taken? I don't even get to take a number and wait my place in line? 

And now the landscape of dating has changed dramatically. Gone are the days of the organic meet and greet. And in its place - Internet dating. Don't get me wrong...I personally know about 27 people who have met and married their others via the laptop of love. They are all happily married. And I have to admit there is a certain allure to the candor and selectiveness online dating affords. But nothing makes me feel more like there's a man famine than having to write my own advertisement. It's the underlying message that worries me: 

Dating Feast says love will find me. Dating Famine says I've got to go out and find love. And don't be surprised if it's hiding. 

Dating Feast says God/The Universe will pick the moment when I'm least expecting love to surprise me with it. Dating Famine says I might be too busy in today's fast paced world to cross paths with anyone if I don't sign up now. Right now. 

Dating Feast says there is a lid for every pot. Dating Famine says I'll need a freakin' national database to find mine.  

But what if the man famine is a myth? What if it's like Close Encounters of the Third Kind? When everyone is convinced there's an invisible fog of poisonous gas threatening Wyoming. Until Richard Dreyfuss rips off his gas mask. And discovers it's just aliens. Only to be rewarded by said aliens as the one member of the human race selected to accompany them to infinity and beyond. Who was laughing then, huh?

I'm with Richard. Enough with the gas masks.      

PS...according to INED, a French research institute in the field of international demographics and population trends, there are more boys than girls born into the world. About 105 boys to every 100 girls. And at a certain age, the sexes become numerically equal. Roughly around the age of 35.

Perfect timing.