Committing to a partner for
marriage is scary for all kinds of reasons. One being that you never really
know how your current partner compares to all the other people you might meet
in the future. Settle down early, and you might forgo the chance of a more
perfect match later on. Wait too long, and all the good ones might be gone.
This is painful!
But it turns out that there is
a pretty simple mathematical formula (Optimal stopping problem) that tells you
how long you ought to search, and when you should stop searching and settle
down.
Taking realistic assumptions
that you can't go back to someone you have rejected and can't look ahead in
future, the solution says
" Reject the first 37%
potential candidates you date, and finalize on the one who is better than the
first 37%"
To apply this to real life, you’d have to
know how many potential dates you could potentially have or want to have —
which is impossible to know for sure, so an estimate would do! Here, let's
assume you would have 5-6 serious dates in the course of your life (Let's be
realistic here!). You need to blindly reject the first 2 serious dates that you
go to and finalize on the one you find who is better than the first 2.
Does it work? Mostly Yes, if you have a
fairly consistent dating pattern, otherwise there can be two risks
1. If your first 37% dates are extremely
awesome! and all the others are dull, you'll end up rejecting the first 37% and
will die alone (as per this algorithm)
2. If your first 37% dates are extremely
dull. You might end up spending your life with someone marginally less boring
than the first 37%
Like I said, it's not 100% full proof, but
gives a good mathematical perspective to Love. While you're at it do check out the Twango app on the Google Play Sore and who knows you might find the ONE!
