Comment by AnimalMuppet

Comment by AnimalMuppet a day ago

I think the secret is "clearly better than anyone I've got".

If I have nobody, and you introduce me to someone, then it's simple. They're absolutely worth pursuing.

If I have one or two "maybes", and you introduce me to someone, it's easy for them to be clearly better than anyone I've got, and therefore clearly "the one", at least the one to pursue right now.

But if you give me one hundred, then there probably isn't one of them that is clearly better than all the others. Hence, analysis paralysis.

kibwen a day ago

> If I have nobody, and you introduce me to someone, then it's simple. They're absolutely worth pursuing.

Not quite. No matter how badly you want a relationship, I guarantee there exist potential partners with whom a relationship would make your life worse, not better. And for most people, the set of absolutely disastrous potential partners is most people.

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DANmode 20 hours ago

The quoted section felt like a portrayal of the individual’s mentality from the example, more so than actual objective logic.

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Gooblebrai a day ago

> And for most people, the set of absolutely disastrous potential partners is most people.
Care to expand on why?

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Terr_ a day ago

That makes me think of the Secretary Problem [0]... which apparently is also known as the Fussy Suitor problem, at that makes it extra apropos.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

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Sol- a day ago

I remember the book "Algorithms to Live By" actually also uses finding a life partner as a fun, if perhaps unrealistic, example of applying the secretary problem.
As far as I remember, it jokingly assumes that one's active dating period might be ages 20-40 and then applying the optimal solution from the secretary problem means that you should calibrate your expectations until age 27 (assuming regular dating of course) and then immediately marry the next best person that exceeds this threshold.

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kelnos 13 hours ago

There are plenty of people you could be with that would be a strictly worse experience than being alone.