One of the most fundamental insights about dating I realized early on is that we are not built to live in ant colonies like The City, exposed to millions daily, further massively exacerbated by dating apps. Could I find someone more attractive? Yeah. More compatible? Harder to quantify, but probably… although part of being in a relationship is to gradually increase compatibility through small concessions and personal, joint growth. Both simultaneously? Maybe so, at the expense of time wasting, diminishing returns, and higher risk exposure.

le mieux est l'ennemi du bien

But in the application of these same heuristics, the next person too will be cast aside as an eternal search for perfection ensues. All the while your heart hardens like fibrotic scar tissue after repeated trauma; your ability to pair bond decreases; you grow older and less desirable, and your individual context becomes larger and harder to share with another person as life experiences and core memories compound.

This is why once I make it past the first phase—which we will read about later—I pause the apps and stop going on dates altogether. When I didn't, I noticed they would blend together. I would refer things said to person A to person B as if I had said them to the latter, and this perpetual state of stupefaction made it hard to connect. Now I want my focus to be on bonding with that person, not her alongside 20 others, until one tells the other to fuck off (or I feel sufficiently neglected), it remains that way.

For most, the net is cast wide, the requirements low. For me personally, beyond being minimally attractive :^] (binary option), there is a threshold for intelligence that is much harder to meet—pretties are a dime a dozen, but minimally pretty *and* intellectually stimulating? Oof. And as one ages, the pool of suitable candidates decreases—though this applies more strictly to women who are historically known to date older men.

And though it may *appear* the pool size remains constant, there is something to be said about single men and women in their 30s. What went wrong? Why didn't they settle down at peak value? Commitment issues? High disagreeableness? Poor verbal skills (⇒negative rizz)? Something more sinister? This is what the first two phases are for.

(Do note some people fool themselves into thinking their peak value is reached in their 30s as opposed to late 20s, and while I do think it applies to me personally, as a late bloomer and sun worshipper, it is the exception, not the rule. Or maybe I'm one of the delusional fools described above.)

Moving on. I divide dating into two separate phases!

The first phase is strictly vibes. One or two dates. Good first impression? Is there sexual attraction? Do they pass the vibe check? Any immediate superficial disqualifying red flags?

If you're a postmodern urbanite, by this point you've already made out and even fucked (was it good?). The second phase I like to describe as discovery pre-commitment. This is where the baggage comes up. Ideologies clash. You get a small taste of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and get to decide whether or not you'll either be okay with a small concession (what is colloquially referred to as "meeting in the middle") or embracing these differences in opinion, or you would rather return to the trenches.

This part is worth accelerating through. The relationship is now warm and there is a faint level of commitment brewing. Emotional ties start to take root and mismatches in pace are much more salient than they will be later on which may breed resentment. So what do you do? You speedrun it.

You ask questions and have lengthy discussions. First and foremost you must determine what you want out of a relationship—that is your north star, and it may evolve over time. What is most important to you? What else? Continue. Any questions popped up in your mind, ask them. If you're neurotic about specific nonverbal scenarios, put yourselves in a situation where they're likely to happen and communicate feedback to see what happens. Expose yourself to a diverse array of scenarios—outings with friends, double dates, a work dinner, game night with the family. See how everything meshes—maybe you will find you're more (or less) compatible than you originally thought.

But why accelerate? You waste less time, and because of this you are not able to become as emotionally invested, so should you decide you don't want to formalize the commitment, it will hurt less—you are minimizing pain and operating at peak efficiency. Autism.

Of course, one may read this and realize it sounds overly rationalistic and calculated. Who the fuck dates with these in mind? I certainly don't, but if you were to ask me to crystallize the once nebulous knowledge of my subconscious mind into a musing, this is what it would look like.