When we are talking about relationship design, there are some simple but NOT easy (very much so) steps to take and the first one is breaking with the belief that there is only one way to conduct relationships or, perhaps even worse, that there is only one “right” form of relationship.
Let’s geek out a little on numbers (and a ton of that is crazy guessing):
Let’s look at the world population and assume 70% of these people are above 16 (which in most places of the world is the age where a romantic / sexual relationship is not a crime). Then we take that number and split it in half because we are considering that at least 2 people are in a relationship. I actually went with 45% because I know there are a lot of relationships out there that have more than 2 people involved. These are the possible relationships. Now let’s assume only 30% of those are realised and the rest never happened or won’t ever happen. That gives us the following list.
| Year | World Population | 70% above 16 | 45% relationship | 30% in relationships |
| 2018 | 7,632,819,325 | 5342973528 | 2,137,189,411 | 641156823 |
| 2017 | 7,550,262,101 | 5285183471 | 2,114,073,388 | 634222016 |
| 2016 | 7,466,964,280 | 5226874996 | 2,090,749,998 | 627225000 |
| 2015 | 7,383,008,820 | 5168106174 | 2,067,242,470 | 620172741 |
| 2010 | 6,958,169,159 | 4870718411 | 1,948,287,365 | 584486209 |
| 2005 | 6,542,159,383 | 4579511568 | 1,831,804,627 | 549541388 |
| 2000 | 6,145,006,989 | 4301504892 | 1,720,601,957 | 516180587 |
| 1995 | 5,751,474,416 | 4026032091 | 1,610,412,836 | 483123851 |
| 1990 | 5,330,943,460 | 3731660422 | 1,492,664,169 | 447799251 |
| 1985 | 4,873,781,796 | 3411647257 | 1,364,658,903 | 409397671 |
| 1980 | 4,458,411,534 | 3120888074 | 1,248,355,230 | 374506569 |
| 1975 | 4,079,087,198 | 2855361039 | 1,142,144,415 | 342643325 |
| 1970 | 3,700,577,650 | 2590404355 | 1,036,161,742 | 310848523 |
| 1965 | 3,339,592,688 | 2337714882 | 935,085,953 | 280525786 |
| 1960 | 3,033,212,527 | 2123248769 | 849,299,508 | 254789852 |
| 1955 | 2,772,242,535 | 1940569775 | 776,227,910 | 232868373 |
Now, finding reliable statistics on relationship longevity is nearly impossible especially for high population countries like China and India. And even in the US and Europe most of the data is extrapolated from small samplings or educated guess work. Maybe in some of the studies there might have also been tea leaves and chicken entrails involved…