I vaguely recall having written this out before, but if so it was quite a while back, and much less developed.
While young people have always had at least some range of possible mates to choose from, modern Western norms permit a much wider range of choices, and a much broader span of appropriate ages at which to make such choices. Indeed, when remarriage after divorce or spousal death is included, most Western unmarried people are potentially mate-seeking from pre-teen years through extreme old age. Certainly the nature of the marriage relationship shifts depending on the life-stages of the people involved, so the relationships that fall under the umbrella-term 'marriage' include nearly platonic companionate arrangements among the elderly, traditional first marriages between young adults, and remarriage involving all the ex-spouses and existing children from any previous marriages. Since the desirable traits that determine a good match are also likely to shift depending on life-stages, the exact traits that make two people compatible are not only hard to determine precisely, but they are likely to be in a state of flux. Still, it is possible to describe and discuss the gestalt concept of general compatibility between two people.
Just as personality is determined by a large number of factors, some not conducive to measurement, compatibility is built up from the many and various traits of personality of both parties, plus the dynamics of interaction between them. Not only are details like shared hobbies and interests important to the overall compatibility of a relationship, but also the reactions of each party to these shared traits contributes to how well those two people interact. The sum of all these factors creates a degree of compatibility, which can be roughly ranked against that obtained for other relationships either party has. For instance, I could easily rank the compatibility of an old high school classmate with whom I was only ever slightly acquainted as much lower than my compatibility with a guy I fell in love with and dated, regardless of how long that dating lasted. Good friends of mine share higher compatibility with me, and practically everyone I meet and exchange pleasant conversation with is at least somewhat compatible, if only barely.
One could in theory gather up all these rankings for different relationships one has, and graph their distribution, and the result would likely be a skewed Gaussian curve, weighted towards compatibility because it is less likely that people meet very incompatible people. The very act of meeting someone implies a higher chance of higher compatibility, because it suggests the existence of at least some similar habits, interests and preferences. Charting all possible pair-wise relationships between myself and all people on Earth, a more even Gaussian distribution is likely to result.
So how does this have much to do with dating? My friends are all going to fall in the more compatible end of the compatibility distribution, and the closer and more compatible the relationship, the further from the mean the compatibility will be. Looking at the height of the curve at greater compatibility, a person whose compatibility with me is above 2 standard deviations from the mean in this distribution is one of a rather small set of people, relative to the total amount of people I might easily term friends. The 'One,' that perfect ideal mate that may or may not ever actually exist, would be even further out from the mean, and in between these two lie a lot of men and women with whom I am extremely compatible. The men in this group, if I happen to also find them attractive, might easily be potential dates, though it need not be the case that high compatibility always includes mutual attraction. Still, many of these men would, in the normal course of a lifetime, be at least considered as potential boyfriends. Also, if I have only met people who were at most 98% of the compatibility of that ideal 'One', and am, as far as I know, in love with a perfect guy in that 98% ranking, I might find I am not in love after all, and that the man at 98% is nothing compared to some new guy who turns up at 98.9%.
Of course, all this implies a sort of rational comprehensive decision strategy in my choice of dates, and in reality this never is possible. I've met quite a few higher-compatibility people so far in my graduate school career, because in choosing a field that interests me, I have preselected the people I am likely to meet. And, among these people, also not surprisingly, there are several men who are particularly interesting, and seem likely to be particularly compatible. However, I know practically nothing about these men. My estimations of compatibility in my relationships with them derive from all available data, but that data is not sufficient for me, or anyone else, to accurately determine a) which is most compatible with me, b) whether any of them are more compatible with me than my existing exboyfriends, or c) whether any of them are compatible enough that they would not wind up becoming exboyfriends too if I dated them. The only way to really generate good answers to these questions would be to get to know all these men much better, or to date them, one by one, till one man happens to not become an ex.
Taken in its extreme, this would suggest that one ought to not date at all, unless the 'One' shows up, which could not be recognizable without dating at least the potential 'One' long enough to not break up, or alternatively that it is simply impossible for a girl who wants to marry to ever have really good friendships with attractive men. This latter argument has been championed by quite a few people I have met, who can't imagine how gender relations could work any other way. For them an attractive interesting single man is a date, or an ex, or someone they have yet to meet, or perhaps he is already married, or gay, and thus not accessible. My approach, equally as foreign to them as theirs was to me, is almost entirely opposite.
My dating 'policy' works towards minimizing the number of exes I accumulate, on the notion that every ex I gain is a potential lost friendship. If a guy was compatible enough for me to date him, he was compatible enough to be a good friend, too, though the process of breaking up can render even high-compatibility relationships nearly intolerable. One can only have one boyfriend, but one can have an infinite number of friends, and while friendships wax and wane, they need never break up. So long as it is clear that what is going on is not dating, it is easily possible to hang out with all the guys a girl might otherwise date, and the only aspect of dating that cannot comfortably be enjoyed in these friendships is that of romantic physical intimacy. And, if it is not necessary to date these men, it is possible to fully develop good close friendships with all these men simultaneously. As my 'pro-dating' friends point out, this also means I am never going to kiss most if not all of them, let alone sleep with them, and I can't really argue otherwise, but at least if I ever ended up dating even just one or two of them, it is more likely that the resulting relationships would be more enduring and satisfying. And if this sort of dating relationship breaks up, it has a foundation enough that a lasting friendship can still result afterward.
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