Statistics

There are a few things Lonely Planet doesn’t tell you about Phnom Penh. Seemingly innocently enough, LP tells us the population of Phnom Penh is 2 million. Of those 2 million the actual number of people is 1,400,000  (which again begs the question, has anybody from the Lonely Planet actually BEEN to Cambodia?) Of those 1,400,000 the population under 15 years old comprises 40%.

Of the remaining 840,000 approximately 96% of these are Khmer nationals, leaving approximately 25,200 foreigners. Around one third of this figure represents families and children. An additional 15% are people married or in long-term monogamous relationships.

Now we are down to around 12,000 people – one sixth of which are sex-pat retirees in Phnom Penh to live off their meagre western pensions in an eastern paradise. So now we are at the real Phnom Penh - a city of about 10,000 young, singletons.

Beautiful, intelligent, funny, charismatic, kind, generous and brilliant women number – at last accurate count conducted on an empirical scale at Pontoon two Saturdays ago - 9,750. [Ed’s note: this was unanimously confirmed by a group of UK footballers who articulately remarked: “Holy sh** these chicks are sexy!”] Douchebags, assholes, jerk-offs (and other forms of the male species aptly identified by Kanye) number around 100. Males carrying waaaay over the 20kg limit in emotional baggage come in somewhere around 35. So there are fifteen eligible bachelors in all of Phnom Penh. Where was that fun fact, LP?

Of course some caveats are warranted to this statistical analysis: -

Firstly – you may ask what is the number of women who are not beautiful, intelligent, funny, charismatic, kind, generous and brilliant? Answer – zero.

Secondly – you may ask what marks a male as a douchebag, asshole or jerkoff? Well, keep reading this column and you will understand. If you are too cynical (or “too optimistic to believe that these tales amount to much more than the mere ramblings of a cynical spinster”?) it may assist your assessment to know that the douchebag, asshole and jerkoff survey was conducted from a safe observation distance outside the entrance to Heart of Darkness.

Thirdly – you may ask “eligible? What does eligible even mean?” Fair question. Eligible in Phnom Penh essentially means he makes an effort to at least find out your name and buy you a drink, pays for the tuk tuk home, has toilet paper and relatively clean sheets, is free from dubiously-obtained love bites, is a lover who brings the rubber and doesn’t give you the clap.

Welcome to the Phnom Penh dating scene.

Ed’s note: on revision of this post, and in particular my definition of “eligible” the number has subsequently been scaled back to 8 pending Finland opening and staffing an NGO for chivalry and courtesy education.