you are totally over-analysing dating
mystery is interesting, which is why films you already know the ending too are boring.
Same goes for other people, if your interests don’t stretch past video games or the internet, no-one is gonna be intrigued about how you spend your time.
2000 girls in the whole world? stop restricting things before you’ve even tried them - here’s an idea, go out to a museum and walk around looking at the paintings, hundreds of girls who are evidently cultured, and intelligent will walk past you. make a joke about a painting, say ‘hi im chevalier nice to meet you’ and take it from there.
as for all you nice girls - if you don’t flirt with us men, we won’t know you are there, seriously. Take a risk, live a little, bat your eyelids and smile at a guy you like, or you’re gonna stay friend material.
Magic, I appreciate your effort and you make a lot of good points, but I was speaking more in general terms of probability of finding a good match, rather than talking about my own life and I don’t have a problem approaching women, as you seem to suggest. In fact, as far as I go, personally, I’m good at it (the last two law firms I worked for would always pick me to send against the ladies of the court and particularly in the last one, folks would never stop joking about it), my problem if we really must go there lies elsewhere (precisely on the line from initial conquest to initial commitment or a later transition of similar nature). Let’s now move on to the merits, though!
So, for startes, the “2000”. As for the tiny figure, yup, that’s what you get when you consider the probability of multiple conditions occurring jointly, e.g. scoring a six on a dice throw presents a 1/6 chance, but two sixes on two throws is 1/36 already, add another throw with a specific number you want. Using several such factors, you can bring down the impressive number of 1.2 billion people in the developed world (i.e. where you have any reasonable chance of at least meeting someone by flying there if you somehow meet by accident or make friends by Internet) in no time. Say, take the 1.2 billion, cut in half for the right sex, take the 20% or other that are in the right age range for you, we’re in 120 million range. Say, we want Catholic, that’s .17, so we’re down to what? 20.5 million. Suppose you’re attracted to 1 in 5 physically, well, that’s 4 million with small change (numbers being hazy now, it’s the range we want look at). How many people you meet become friends, that is, what kind of potential for becoming friends with a random person is there? That’s another fraction to multiply the product by (and it’s certainly another fraction).
Throw in some demographics for whatever is relevant to you (e.g. the .17 Catholic rate is nominal only, practicing is like what? .3 out of the .17?). And let’s not forget that in some age categories, most people are already married and if not, then committed to someone else and still unavailable. Obviously, the “2000” is totally arbitrary and so on, but a several dozen thousand to a dozen or so thousand matches
range for a person in the whole developed world is realistic. Closer figures will depend on how far a person is willing to settle, how certain desired factors interrelate (e.g. some may occur together instead of being independent), what factors the rough calculation didn’t make room for. In the end, the 20-30-ish eligible single range has nothing to do with an impression that would come from how many people there are on earth.
It’s a bit like with a dating website, which is similar to a traditional match-making service, just operated electronically. You have lots of profiles to look at, but when you start ticking criteria for a search, then you may oops find that there’s like 1 match or 2 in your broad geographical area–from the profiles you can access, obviously, but in real life you don’t meet everybody, either, and in some cases even none. I remember hitting 0 from a combination of sex, age (mine +/- a couple of years), height (danceable), religion (Catholic), political preference.
Then, if you consider that 60% of married women use contraception (
prb.org/pdf08/08WPDS_Eng.pdf), then now let’s think about single women not wanting to use contraception when married, not insisting on sex before marriage, not insisting on behaviours that cross the line (i.e. when you don’t have to compromise your conscience to keep dating). Ooooops.
(For the record, I doubt it’s different with men when being considered from a single Catholic girl’s perspective.)
And therefore, let me present you a vision of what happens when you, as in your example, fish in a museum or art gallery or some other venue of art or learning (which is not a technical problem in my case–I have successfully solicited phone numbers on
public transport in my life, not to mention courts, university etc.). You meet a wonderful lady (after many, many hours of fishing), who is pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, liberal on morality, expects sex before marriage, doesn’t want to “force” her children to live the Catholic life even if she will put up with other things to be with you (the list is just a bunch of examples, there’s more and more of it). Not to mention she might not know if she will ever want to have children (making you wonder if marriage would even be valid).
God is amazing…He is the ultimate matchmaker…trust in Him…for all things, especially finding a suitable spouse. 
Basically, just a couple of factors expressed in fractions can shoot down a large number to really few, e.g. consider that the right age and sex is nowhere near the great total number of people on earth, consider that Catholics are .17 and out of the .17 about .3 are practicing, consider a couple of psychological factors etc. and you really don’t need to be very creative or picky to be left with like 2000 people out of the whole developed world! (In reality, probably a couple times more as people are willing to settle.)
Just kidding.
Kk, I gotta stop picking on you, and go exercise or somethin’.