mediocre relationships are easier to start

In a discussion about science and innovations, a person named John Sidles (his homepage) made the following comment:

In particular, [source] describes an example peer-review failure because “The economists of the time felt that it would violate their methodology to consider a problem, such as the role of asymmetric information, that was out of its traditional focus.”
“Out of our traditional focus” is a very common reason for rejection, not only in academic publishing, but also in business, and politics (and if you think about it, even romance).
I think it was Marvin Minsky, in Society of Mind, who pointed out how very necessary it is, that human cognition has strong censorship mechanisms, operating largely on the preconscious level, that reject ideas that don’t match preconceptions.
This is no bad thing. But the paradoxical result is that it is (sometimes) more difficult for a good idea to find an audience than a mediocre one.
For much the same reason, mediocre relationships often are easier to initiate than good ones … with the result that it’s all too easy to find yourself embracing dull ideas *and* dull romantic partners.

I think this is very insightful! True and important at the same time.

It's easy to hook up with people who are like ourselves. But it's much more rewarding to be with people who are different from ourselves! (As long as they share the same basic values, of course.)

That's why the ambitious person will not stop when things get a little difficult in dating. Indeed, if compatibility at a profound level exists, more work in the beginning comes with a promise for a much higher reward. A relationship that widens your horizon! Instead of getting stuck where you are...

needs vs. desires

Recently I used the phrase "your personal needs and desires" in a speech about how to find a romantic partner. I think that those two innocent-looking words do indeed touch on a very profound subject in dating on which I want to elaborate in this post.
First of all there is a great divide in that a person's needs can be understood to mean all the things necessary to make that person happy, while her desires are the things she is striving for, admiring, because she thinks that they will make her happy.
People always want to be inspired, have high goals, find something of special value. May it be somebody really good looking, or somebody really social, or somebody really successful in his life projects (career or hobbies). That's something we look up to, or desire.
Now, unfortunately what we think we need and what we really need are often very different. Sometimes it can even be opposites and we make ourselves unhappy until we realize it. Or sometimes, our needs encompass things which we never really thought about and don't know how important they are.

We form desires when we grow up, but we find out about our needs when we grow old. Those people who learn about their needs before they grow old, will have the power to make themselves truly happy.

But apart from the know/don't-know divide, there's another dichotomy which is described by needs vs. desires. This dichotomy is about two poles of attraction which both have to be strong in order for a person to fall in love. The desires are what makes their opposite noteworthy, admirable, valuable, desireable, they focus on success, talents, strenghts, looks, money, brains, things that the person offers to you, while the needs on the other hand are a counterbalance are about things that refer more to you than your opposite: will the person give you comfort when you need it, will they respect you, will you be important to them, are you even good enough for them?
Our desires spur us on to date out of our league, while the needs will remind us to be realistic and look for people who are just good to us.
A person that only represents our desires would be considered way out of their league by most and they would never try to ask them out or would be quite suspicious about serious intentions when asked out by them. A person that mostly represents our needs, however, would be considered as just a friend by most people and they would say that there's just "something" lacking to make the relationship a romantic one.
I think there is much more to say about this, since many aspects of dating can be explained by it. Let's leave that for later posts.


This post is dedicated to L., S., and Y. for the inspiration and to K. for the encouragement.