It’s fine until you change a vague statement about “most” relationships (which obviously means outgroup-people’s relationships) into a specific one about people in the conversation, or friends of people in the conversation, or other ingroup members. At which point, I’d say it’s just offensive, not taboo. Offensive, hard to justify, based on the outside view when people with inside view information are around… yeah, probably instrumentally unwise to say most of the time, too.
Yeah, that was pretty much the only thing I could think of. But given that people do not in fact have randomly assigned soulmates who are a much better match than anyone else, holding out for your soulmate is not a possible policy.
Another thing that would qualify is meeting everyone in the world (in reasonable age brackets and filtering by gender if appropriate, and maybe some amount of filtering on culture and interests still counts as not settling) to determine the best possible match, not because you can only be happy with them but because you refuse to settle for the infinitesimally inferior second-best match. But it’s very unlikely that you’ll be your first choice’s first choice, forcing at least one of you to settle for an inferior match or remain single.
Gratuitous bragging: my calculations suggest that there are about ten thousand people in the world I’d be more or less as happy with as with my boyfriend. (It’s not that lucky, I meet an incredibly skewed sample.) I have on average two more chances of finding another good match if we break up, and I’m not unhappy about this prospect, which makes “settling” a strange descriptor.
Claiming that people did not have their mate selected by their subconscious and pheromones or whatever is not the same as saying they did not have them selected by random draw by ***ing cupid.
Most sexual relationships are between people who are settling for what they can get.
Cynicism about love is taboo? Where have I been?
It’s fine until you change a vague statement about “most” relationships (which obviously means outgroup-people’s relationships) into a specific one about people in the conversation, or friends of people in the conversation, or other ingroup members. At which point, I’d say it’s just offensive, not taboo. Offensive, hard to justify, based on the outside view when people with inside view information are around… yeah, probably instrumentally unwise to say most of the time, too.
You mean optimizing.
Wouldn’t satisficing be more correct?
Agreed. Although if you include the cost of searching, satisficing is the optimal solution.
As opposed to what?
True Love.
Yeah, that was pretty much the only thing I could think of. But given that people do not in fact have randomly assigned soulmates who are a much better match than anyone else, holding out for your soulmate is not a possible policy.
Another thing that would qualify is meeting everyone in the world (in reasonable age brackets and filtering by gender if appropriate, and maybe some amount of filtering on culture and interests still counts as not settling) to determine the best possible match, not because you can only be happy with them but because you refuse to settle for the infinitesimally inferior second-best match. But it’s very unlikely that you’ll be your first choice’s first choice, forcing at least one of you to settle for an inferior match or remain single.
Gratuitous bragging: my calculations suggest that there are about ten thousand people in the world I’d be more or less as happy with as with my boyfriend. (It’s not that lucky, I meet an incredibly skewed sample.) I have on average two more chances of finding another good match if we break up, and I’m not unhappy about this prospect, which makes “settling” a strange descriptor.
But this is only an issue at all because we’re weirdos here.
Claiming that people did not have their mate selected by their subconscious and pheromones or whatever is not the same as saying they did not have them selected by random draw by ***ing cupid.