I suppose I'll continue musing on this one for decades yet, though now that I am no longer a psychology student I doubt I will ever be writing up any formal papers on it now. (Actually, maybe not. I suppose I could always bail on environmental policy and wind up in some government agency dealing with this stuff, analyzing the extent to which government can influence the formation of healthy families, etc.) Anyway, one of the ads in the line-up during Mission Impossible III tonight is from Match.com, all about their questionnaire system. On the face of it, this system makes great sense. If I administered a 300 question personality profile to every cute single guy I meet while I am a grad student, and then ask out only those who score within a certain optimal range, assuming I know what is optimal, maybe I could guarantee I would be married by the time I finish my Masters. Maybe I would even still be happy with this guy for years afterwords. Somehow, though, I doubt it.
Actually just about any guy who would let me bully him into taking a questionnaire would be already self-selected into a certain range of personalities. Maybe I need a push-over, but I think it more likely that I would just walk all over such a guy by accident. But, lets just assume for a minute that the lucky guy was just humoring me, and thus is still a reasonable match. How much do questionnaires really tell me, or anyone? How much of relationships really relies on the answers one could give to any set of questions? There is, of course, also a picture to go with each potential match on a dating site, but knowing how attractive a complete stranger is, and a bunch of static answers wouldn't be enough to add up to relationship bliss either, I think.
Being a short, handicapped woman has so far always landed me loads of really unbelievably attractive male friends, all variously single, and all people who were or still are great friends. Many of them are probably married by now, but all of them, once we became well acquainted, are not "the one." I am sure most people, or at least most of those who didn't marry young, have a host of similar friends. And, most of the men I have dated were not among those I would have ranked as particularly good-looking. Each would have had very different answers to any set of questions. This is all just part of normal single life, but yet the process of mate selection, and the dynamics of normal relationships lie at the heart of marital failure and the 'demise' of the family.
So, what exactly brought all this on? The ad for match.com said that it was easy, because match.com "does all the work." I know dating can be frustrating, but laziness seems a poor way to make it better. Forming and maintaining a relationship takes some effort, even if it is the perfect one. Once someone or something else assumes responsibility for this effort, when do the people forming the relationship resume that effort? After all, at least in the meeting new people/ first dates stages there is novelty and excitement to move things along, making it easier to put in effort. A few months or years later, when the novelty is gone, there is also no dating site to make things easier. Sure, there is a role for dating sites, but it seems so much more exciting going out and doing things, and meeting new potential partners in these activities.
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