This App Will Tell You When You Should Have Gotten Married

Just in time to completely depress you before Valentine's Day, Time magazine has a new Facebook app that will help pinpoint the exact date you probably should be getting married (or should have gotten married if that age has already passed you by). How helpful.

To me, prior to this, Time was really just a magazine that kept me entertained in the waiting room at the doctor's office. But now, they've provided an app that analyzes your personal Facebook feed to see when all of your friends and loved ones got married, and compares you to them. This can either make you hopeful, or hopelessly depressed. I'll let you decide.

Here are my results (which basically tell me "Don't worry, Wendy! It's not too late for you!" which is basically the same thing my mom has been telling me for years.):

First of all, I didn't realize that 251 of my friends were married, though I do appreciate the "That leaves you 1 year, 1 month, and 4 days. But remember, half of your friends were married after that age!" Great! I have all sorts of time to not become a crazy cat-lady spinster who's destined to be forever alone! Better go snatch me up a husband!

How does Time figure all of this out? Well, apparently they use math:

This application measures the median age of your married friends, meaning the person for whom half your married friends are younger and half are older. Because you are probably friends with a lot of people close to your age, this figure will theoretically identify whether you have passed the point where many of your contemporaries start tying the knot. It will work better for some than others.

 

For the purposes of this tool, “married” refers to anyone who lists his or her relationship status as “married,” “engaged,” “in a domestic partnership,” or “in a civil union.” We’re aware that some people use this status facetiously. Since the distribution of your friends’ ages tends to form a bell curve centered on your own age, a few jokesters shouldn't throw off the figure drastically.

Granted, it doesn't seem like this app took into account anyone older than about 45, which means that it didn't include my parents (married in their very early 20's), my grandparents (married in their late teens/early 20's), or any of my other older and generally married family members/friend/co-workers.

Whatever. I'm going to go home and pet my dog and write some Supernatural fan-fiction while drinking wine and looking longingly back and forth between my ring finger and my boyfriend (who will be watching re-runs of "Sons Of Guns" on Netflix).

[TIME]