About a month ago, I went on a date with a guy who was smart, interesting, ambitious, health-conscious, athletic, curious, passionate about environmental issues, and pretty damn good-looking. The Venn diagram of our interests and passions would have had a decent chunk of overlap.
After one and a half hours of drinking in a bar, we walked out and proceeded never to contact each other again.
What are we looking for?
This has happened multiple times now. You meet for a coffee, have a great conversation about artificial intelligence, politics, homelessness in San Francisco. And you never see each other again. Occasionally, the romance lasts for a couple of weeks or a month. But ultimately it fizzles out like potassium being dropped in water.
In this blog-post, I explore 4 categories of reasons that I believe drive our serial dating behavior.
I. There is a diminished need or want for sole companionship
In the day and age of TaskRabbit, Uber, food delivery services and online everything, the need for another human being to share the workload of living with has come down significantly. I don’t practically feel the need most days to have anyone to split errands with (though except for maybe doing taxes, because I haven’t cracked that one myself yet…).
In more primitive times and societies, marriage is partly a mechanism for living, which had a high task burden. Today, the task burden is significantly alleviated by all the apps and devices we have. In more traditional societies, the need for marriage also came from a strict division of labor and skills, which meant women needed men for certain tasks and men needed women for certain tasks. Today, no man needs a wife to cook for him. No woman needs a man to drive her anywhere.
Having eliminated this need, we venture into the wants category to see what desires may remain that could be fulfilled by a partner. The truth is even wants have been significantly diminished.
“Do you ever feel lonely?” I asked one of my dates.
“Not really” he replied “I have a roommate and tons of friends to go hiking and skiing with on weekends, and a busy job through the week”.
It sounded familiar, because it was my lifestyle too (minus skiing, I don’t ski…yet).
The San Francisco (and other big city) lifestyle is one of extended teenage-hood. You live with roommates well into your 30s. Here’s the catch for those of you wanting me to reflect on how sad it is: it isn’t sad at all – it’s actually fun. It’s fun to alternate who you hang out with every weekend, to have stimulating conversations with tons of different people, exposure to tons of different activities, and all this with zero commitment to doing anything for anyone that may benefit them at your inconvenience.
But here’s the catch…living without love nearby is like living without insurance, it’s great until something bad happens. And with enough health and luck, something bad may never happen in our 20s or 30s or 40s, and there really may be no need for someone beyond your parents, siblings and select friends. Your risk aversion drives how much you search for a partner. In my experience, the boldest/most optimistic among us don’t crave partnership as much.
II. We like being alone and the freedom it brings
“I like spending the day by myself” – anon girl-friend
For many of us, the truth is having the freedom to shape your non-work days the way you want has become a norm. Especially since during the week most of us are corporate slaves, the weekend is when we get to exercise our freedom. Deviations from this freedom norm are painful. And any kind of relationship will tend to involve some compromise on your freedom.
You also might be the type of person who is happy watching a movie by yourself; reading a book by yourself; going to a museum by yourself with the freedom to linger over any exhibit for as long as you like. I’ve typically been the type of person who constantly needs to be with someone, but a month or so ago I went to watch Jumanji on a Saturday night by myself, and had a great time. Who knew?
III. We know what we want, we won’t budge on it, and we can’t find it
I think this is the most pertinent reason for most of us being serial daters.
“I know exactly what I want and you’re not it” said one of my dates to me once. (Gotta admire his honesty at least!)
After a certain age and certain number of dates and partners, many of us know what we want in vague terms, if not exactly. Though, I also believe many of us will discover that what we thought was critical wasn’t so important because we’ll be charmed/trapped (half glass full/half glass empty, take your pick of words) by some other variable.
It’s good to know what you want, but it’s probably a barrier to your love life to want too much, and want more than you can give yourself.
What are you expecting from your future partner? And is it really fair given what you will bring to the table yourself?
Perhaps we’ve taken optimization too far in our love lives. Perhaps we need to follow the wise words of Baloo the bear from The Jungle Book…
“And don’t spend your time lookin’ around
For something you want that can’t be found
When you find out you can live without it
And go along not thinkin’ about it
I’ll tell you something trueThe bare necessities of life will come to you”
— Baloo
IV. We are waiting for fireworks: about these ‘sparks’ you speak of
I recently asked one of my dates (the first guy in this post actually!) for feedback. Interestingly, feedback in the dating field is extremely taboo. So let me dwell on that point a bit.
Pros of getting feedback:
- You might learn something useful that is either fixable (e.g. “talked too much”, “dressed too casual”) or just an insight on how you are perceived. We all have blind spots.
- They might say really nice things about you and then you get to feel a warm glow (he did!)
- You are probably never going to see that person again so the downside is small
Cons of getting feedback:
- You might hear something that could lower your self-esteem, and it could be unfixable e.g. “You’re too short” (probably common feedback for me, if anyone was ever honest!)
- They might not be honest/might be too vague
- Their feedback might be their unique perspective/preference and not widely applicable
- They might think you have low self-esteem/ liked them too much – and everyone who is dating knows, there’s no worse humiliation than someone knowing that you like them when they don’t like you
Ok, detour on feedback over. I took the risk. The guy said “blah blah blah blah <nice things> blah blah blah…..Unfortunately I just didn’t feel a strong connection and never pursued further”
It made me think: a lot of us are walking into dates expecting some kind of supernatural connection or force between us, and won’t text back without it. I’ve done it too: not pursued people because of a lack of ‘Je ne sais quoi’.
When you look at relationships and how they started, I have heard a few stories of sparks happening (usually of ‘friends of friends’). I’ve also heard tons of stories where there was no connection or spark, but an affection between two people grew over time. Have I had a spark with anyone I met straightaway? Being candid, no. I did used to find guys instantly attractive and sometimes I still do, but it’s always the guys who every girl finds attractive because they’re visually attractive men – so it’s not a spark exclusive to me or us.
I’m left questioning: Are we right to want a ‘spark’? What exactly is this elusive ‘spark’ of which people speak?
Concluding thoughts
So where are we left with all forces seemingly pulling us away from the currents of love that also run deep in our psyche? For once, my friends, I have to say, I don’t have the answer. I just don’t know. But I hypothesize: May be serial dating isn’t all that bad as long as you know when to compromise. May be there is someone out there who is worth the glorious sacrifice of not going on a Saturday hike with friends. May be there is someone out there who won’t satisfy all your criteria, but you will accept them because you will never satisfy anyone’s criteria fully either, and someone will accept you.
And ultimately, like anything in life, Love is a gamble too. So for now, Happy Serial dating, keep at those frogs!