Modern dating technology is great. Online dating, speed dating, social networking, etc. There is no limit to the number of ways you can meet eligible coeds. And it’s easy. It doesn’t take much effort to strike up a virtual or actual conversation with a potential mate.
Unfortunately, I've found that this low barrier to entry, one of the biggest benefits to online dating, is also one of its biggest drawbacks. Yes, it’s fairly easy to meet a smorgasbord of ladies these days, but once two potential lovers have a conversation going, it’s just as easy for one of you to decide that you never want to speak to each other again. Easy come, easy go, as they say.
And since there are so many options, why not move on to the next one if something isn’t quite right? Sander van Der Linden sums it up nicely in a new article from Scientific American’s Mind Matters:
[B]eing confronted with a large number of choices can make it harder to make a good decision. In fact, it can even prevent you from a making a decision in the first place.
Of course, this isn't just true of dating decisions. In this, the Information Age, it’s becoming quite clear to many researchers that too many choices is not always a good thing. But the application of this idea to the delicate dance of courtship IS new. Here are some fun findings:
[The authors] analyzed over 3,700 human dating decisions across 84 speed-dating events. [They] found that when the available dates varied more in attributes such as age, height, occupation and educational background, people made fewer dating proposals. This effect was particularly strong when people were faced with a large number of potential partners. In fact, when both conditions were present, participants were more likely to make no decision at all.So maybe you should narrow your options. Maybe you should be a little less picky. Or maybe you should stop reading blogs all day and get a life!
