Issue #22: The Paradox of Choice: Affairs of the Heart
I have noticed that many of the articles in this newsletter coalesce around the theme of friendship. It is interesting because I didn’t set out to write articles of a specific...
I have noticed that many of the articles in this newsletter coalesce around the theme of friendship. It is interesting because I didn’t set out to write articles of a specific theme when I started. It isn’t surprising, though. True friendship is a blessing — a light that shines when the perpetual darkness of the world seems to overwhelm; a warm blanket when the coldness of the world bites; a breeze that provides succour when the heat of the world burns too hot — and I have been abundantly blessed with great friends. It makes sense why I keep writing about my experiences with these fantastic people. We have cultivated and continue to nurture spaces where we feel comfortable enough to discuss thorny subjects, including affairs of the heart.
The experience of dating in a world awash with options became the focus during one of our recent conversations. In a world where it seems we have an unlimited dating pool, where there are constant distractions, how do people ever make the decision on whom to be with? It is safe to assume that this thought has crossed the minds of almost every young person. Why not pen my thoughts on it. In the pre-internet age, a person’s dating pool was limited by their location. People relied primarily on in-person meetings, and their pool was limited, in theory, to the number of people in their area. These days, the ubiquity of dating apps has changed everything. Even social networking apps have become an amorphous form of dating apps (LinkedIn not an exception). They present us with almost unlimited options. One could be in their Lagos flat and converse with a stunner in Kigali. It is tantalising. Intoxicating. But just as too much alcohol makes one inebriated and impairs decision-making, having such a large dating pool could have the same effect. It is the paradox of choice.
The paradox of choice was an idea popularised by American psychologist Barry Schwartz when he published his book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, in 2004. The idea is that having a plethora of choices, rather than making people happy and ensuring that they get what they want, can cause them stress and lead to decision paralysis. When people finally manage to make a decision, they are often left unhappy about their choice because of a fixation on the idea that a better option may exist out there. In the context of dating, the effect is a dating culture where everyone seems too distracted by other options to give anyone else a real shot at building a deep, meaningful relationship. It is the swelling of the pool of the ‘unavailable’, people who are perpetually distracted and want to ‘explore’ almost ad infinitum. Meet someone special today, but why attempt to build something with them when countless other special people exist?
It reminds me of the Exploration-Exploitation tradeoff I learned in my reinforcement learning class in my MSc year. Faced with choosing one of several options, an agent tries to select the option that maximises its reward and hence is faced with a dilemma: should the agent stick to choosing what it already knows, learn more about it, and get a reward close to what it expects (exploitation), or should it choose something it isn’t sure about and possibly learn more and gain more (exploration)? The agent has to sacrifice one for the other. That’s why it is a tradeoff. I view modern dating through that lens. We could either choose to stick with that one special person — that imperfect human capable of driving us crazy and making us feel butterflies — deepen our relationship with them, or we could continue exploring, hoping to find that extra special someone. The thing is, we may or may never find them. This is the real world, not a mathematical space with defined constraints. Question is, how does one know when to ‘exploit’ and when to keep exploring? I’d love to read your thoughts.
When asked about my thoughts on the topic, I told my friends that I suppose one knows when it’s time to stop exploring when one starts feeling a sense of profound emptiness after sharing moments, and maybe your bed, with strangers. At first, it is alluring, but it loses its lustre after a while. At some point, all you want is to spend your time with someone you deeply connect with and build with them. Everything else is meaningless.
The social preview image that is shown when this post is shared is by Victoriano Izquierdo on Unsplash