Single Calgary men outnumber women, Statistics Canada reports

If you are a single Calgary male seeking a single Calgary female, the odds are stacked against you, the most recent Statistics Canada numbers show.

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Of the 265,405 Calgarians who identified as single, never legally married in 2011, 55 per cent are men (145,970) compared with 45 per cent women (119,435).

So if — in some theoretical pairing experiment — every single woman was matched with a single man, there would still be 26,535 single men left over.

Miguel Brown — who sang So Many Men, So Little Time in 1983 — would be jealous.

That covers only residents who said they were single at that time: separated, divorced and widowed are listed separately.

When including all of those segments, the numbers balance out a bit.

Of the roughly 380,000 Calgarians who are not married and not living with a common-law partner, roughly 49 per cent are men (185,685) versus 51 per cent women (194,330).

The numbers also don't take into account all the people who don't identify as heterosexual.

So if this Valentine's Day, as a single straight man looking for love in Calgary, you feel like there's less to choose from, the numbers, depending on how you look at them, may support that conclusion.

But perhaps being single, is the goal for some people, making the statistics irrelevant.

University of Manitoba social psychology professor Marian Morry says gender inequality on campuses leads to more casual relationships, and more people seeking out longer-term friendships.

"A lot of people are really embracing being single and they enjoy being single and we are certainly staying single to a much older age than we have in the past," said Morry.

"Society's attitudes have changed."