As an honest question (probably with some subjectivity), **how many smooth oriented 4-manifolds are actually symplectic?** Can I say half (perhaps under some mild assumptions)? I ask this question because every compact smooth oriented 4-manifold with $b^2_+\ge 1$ admits a *near-symplectic* form, i.e. a closed 2-form which is symplectic away from a finite set of circles. Some results that might push the percentage one way or the other: 1) Gompf has shown that any finitely presented group can be realized as the fundamental group of a compact symplectic 4-manifold. 2) The Seiberg-Witten invariants are nonzero for symplectic 4-manifolds, and in a sense show that they are the "irreducible" basic forms of smooth 4-manifolds. 3) Every compact symplectic 4-manifold is a branched cover of $\mathbb{C}P^2$. The responses/comments show that we can ask this question (on when can I expect my 4-manifold to be symplectic) in many different ways, each with different expectations. So I am interested in some further thoughts on Tim's and Dmitri's questions.