How Long Have You Been Going Out? Where You Live Says It All [graph]

“We’ve been going out for 3 months, which in New York time is like 3 years.” This comment came from a colleague during a cigarette break at last week’s Math and Statistics Convention in Belchertown, Mass . Which led to a bigger question – is there a meaningful relationship between time spent in a relationship and the city in which you are spending it? What, for example, would 3 years be in Belchertown time? We put out our cigarettes and reached for our calculators. Turns out 3 years in Belchertown in exactly the inverse of New York – 3 months. We applied the formula to every city we could think of, from Tucson to Tucumcari, and the accuracy was spot on. The formula, as we release it to the world (patent pending) is this:

Take the city’s excitement level, generally defined by choices of entertainment and population. Multiply this number by the city’s neurosis level, defined by the collective unease of its citizens, then divide by the actual amount of time one spends in the relationship. To simplify:

(City excitement level)(city neurosis level) ÷ time in relationship = “real” time in relationship

The graph should help you understand. Try it with your own city, and your own relationships. Where do you pan out?