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roland comments on Rational approach to finding life partners - Less Wrong Discussion
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The Correct Rational Approach to Finding Life Partners:
Start with two facts: First, the vast majority of women are not, in fact, suitable life partners for you. Second, you are not a suitable life partner for the vast majority of women.
These imply a course of action which starts with elimination. If building an online dating profile? Your goal is not to attract as many suitable people as possible. Your goal is to -reject- as many unsuitable people as possible; this is the entry point for people looking for you, and there are far, far more unsuitable people than suitable people. The same is true in real life, which can be as simple as avoiding locations which are primarily populated by unsuitable people. (Bars, as a rule, for pretty much anybody who would be reading this.)
Likewise, when searching for people, your goal is -rejection-. If you're looking for the hottest girl in the bar - you've already failed, because you're not looking to reject people. Also, you're in a bar. Reject the locations, first. "Is this somewhere I'm likely to meet somebody who fits my interests, who who would be interested in me?" Maximize the ratio of acceptable to unacceptable people.
This is Less Wrong - go to Lindy Hop or otherwise swing dance classes. It's the nerdiest dance community you'll find, and the gender proportions, depending on where you are, will probably favor you if you're male. Also, it will help with your proprioception, which, given that you're on Less Wrong, could probably use some help anyways.
Once you've eliminated the unsuitable, do -not- pick the "best". You're probably pretty good at identifying what won't work, but you're probably pretty terrible at identifying what will.
So be open to short-term flings. These can turn into long-term relationships - although you shouldn't expect them to.
Hell, be open to casual sex. These encounters can -also- turn into long-term relationships - although, again, you shouldn't expect them to.
Be open to friendships. Once again, expect nothing.
In general - once you've eliminated the unsuitable, be open. You're looking for pearls; once you've sorted them out, don't toss the oysters overboard before you've checked. They may surprise you.
Don't seduce people into long-term relationships in any terms, let long-term relationships happen on their own. If it takes a special effort to make somebody fall in love with you, it will take a special effort, constantly, forever, for them to stay in love with you.
I didn't quite understand this, could you please elaborate?
Your ability to judge both yourself, and another person, and how your personalities will interact, is limited. It's sufficient to identify people with whom you absolutely will not get along, with reasonable accuracy; this is low-hanging fruit. So let's say you've eliminated 95% of the candidate pool by this point.
The remaining 5%? You're now considering a pool of candidate partners who you can't immediately eliminate (assuming you have more than one person remaining, after all probably-unsuitable people are eliminated). At this point your list of candidates are people about whom you are uncertain. -Remember- that you're uncertain.
Or, from a different angle: If you are absolutely certain that a relationship with somebody will work out, that sense of certainty should, due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, be taken as evidence that you should be less certain.
Ok, so why not pick the "best"? This sounds like defeatist to me. You are assuming that the best is probably to good for me, over my league and instead of wasting time and energy on that I should rather focus on more realistic options. Is that it?
No. It's that you're probably overestimating your ability to judge which relationship will be the "best" for you. The Halo Effect means, for example, you'll probably overestimate all the positive qualities of a person, based on one quality that is exceptional (say, physical attractiveness).