Love, the Internet, and Rational Choice

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Everyone says that love comes when it comes, when you least expect it, and that nothing can be done to hurry it along. Wonderful, I can hardly wait. (Sound of feet tapping). I'm sorry, I'm just too impatient about some things. I've been single for the last three and a half years and have learned to live with my solitude. But I really miss coupled life (shopping, cooking dinner together, farts in bed, choosing kitchen curtain patterns, that sort of thing), for which reason, given my impatience, I've made a concerted effort as of late to hasten Cupid's cherubic butt over my way.

Part of the strategy, actually a pretty big part, has been posting profiles on singles sites. You know, I was thinking the other day that the last time I was single the internet didn't exist! Well, it did exist, but in beta (sans Yahoo, Google, Youtube, etc.). The point is that I met guys the old fashioned way, in bars, stalled elevators, and at the front door delivering pizzas. But now they deliver directly to my inbox. I have profiles on Manhunt, Gaydar, Gayromeo, etc. Everyday I get at least a couple of messages. Quite a few show body parts that polite society speaks of with innuendo and slightly feigned discretion. Some photos are really hot although most just make me laugh or say iieeuuuuu (is that how you write that sound?). But many are from guys looking for love (dinner cookers and curtain hangers). I've met a lot of guys in these sites, had a lot of great, no-strings sex, as well as romance and a couple of good friends, but nothing more. Cupid, wherefore art thou? My best friend, Eugenio, tells me that I don't want to fall in love, that all my sighing and yearning is a load of disingenuous claptrap disguising the fact that I love being single and getting laid so often. Emphatically I tell him no! He tells me I'm too demanding, to which I respond, "of course, I'm not going to shack up with just anybody". Nonetheless, I began wondering if I really didn't have a mental block, some unseen psychic chastity belt. While I was pondering this I stumbled upon a very interesting article which may in some way explain Cupid's extended vacation.

One of the dogmas of Western rationalism concerns in the maximization of utility. The decisions we make, it is supposed, are guided by the sole the sole objective of increasing utility. Quite often, for us enlightened moderns, this has to do with the increase of freedom, which is most easily achieved by increasing the number of choices available to us. More choice = more freedom, and more freedom = more utility, more wellbeing. It would seem that happiness (or whatever utility you happen to be partial to) is a function of the number of options from which we can choose.

The funny thing is that many studies have shown that this turns out not to be the case. Let's take an example from studies of consumer choice. In a grocery store there is a table set up with 5 different varieties of jam. Most people who have jam on their list will taste the different varieties, choose one, and go to the checkout. When you put 20 varieties of jam on the table shoppers will start tasting, go from one to the other, get confused, not remember how one tasted, go back, and so on, until finally the majority give up and leave without buying any of them. Now why is this? In his book The Paradox of Choice (here's a video of him talking about his theory) Barry Schwartz explains that the more options we have, the higher our expectations, the more demanding we are (Eugenio was right!). We worry about making the right choice, choosing the best option, and if we make a mistake we feel regret and blame ourselves.

Returning to my amorous predicament, if I lived in a small town out in the middle of nowhere and there were only three eligible bachelors it would be a hell of a lot easier to choose. But in our modern, complex societies, and especially with thousands and thousands of profiles and personal spaces on the internet, making decisions is far more difficult. "Should I choose him? But what if the love of my life is on the next page of profiles?" See what I mean? Craziness!! When I read these studies it occurred to me that this very phenomenon may be affecting my love life. What do you think? I guess the best thing to do would be to learn to be patient, erase my profiles, and hope to meet the love of my life in an elevator!
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