Do you have too many choices to find the right one?
In those archaic days before online dating, one would have to wander out into the real world and purse a relationship. Maybe you would be lucky enough to be set up with someone that a friend knew, or you could meet someone while you were running errands, but other than that, you had to rely on happenstance to meet the right one for you. And once you met them, you would have to figure out if they were available and if they were even remotely interested.
Now that we have online dating, we seem to have found the solution to all of these problems. Now you don’t even have to leave the house to “meet” someone. All you have to do is set up a profile and get online and then you can meet hundreds of people that you may have not ever met. And if you see something you are not particularly interested in, you can swipe right or left and click on to the next person. Almost too good to be true.
What’s the problem?
It sounds perfect, so what’s wrong with online dating. Maybe it’s that you have too many choices. There is such a thing as a serial online dater. These people have decided to act on what our cultural thinks is the best; more choice is preferable, the downside to this, is that if we have too many choices, we become immune to what is the best choice. In fact, once we actually do choose, it may be hard to find satisfaction in the choice you actually made.
Are you happy with your choice?
A research study on this topic used a test group and gave them a choice of six to 24 prospective suitors. Those who had more choices were less content than those who had a smaller dating pool. Think about how dissatisfying choosing from an exponentially larger group of potential dates will be.
Freedom of choice can be a bad thing
The thing that may be keeping people from being happy with their chocie, regardless of how good a match they have made is the idea that they have other options. The attraction of the unknown can rear its ugly head into otherwise good matches.
A way to avoid this sense of dissatisfaction is to limit your choices. You can be more selective when you do a search for potential dates. Another thing to do is focus on one person at a time. It can be tempting to keep casting your nets in the dating pool, but once you have made a reasonable match, focus on that and stop looking.
If you are looking for a long term match, you should really take you choices into consideration and focus on the one that is right for you.