 A few years ago, psychologist Barry Schwartz wrote The Paradox of Choice--a pop psych book with a deceptively simple bottom line: though we think of choice as a good thing, having too many options makes us miserable. Schwartz says there are two kinds of decision-makers: "maximizers" and "satisficers." A maximizer wants to make the best decision possible. If you spend forever on Amazon reviewing tea kettles before buying one, you're probably a maximizer. In contrast, satisficers want to make decisions that are "good enough." A satisficer might think, "I want a kettle with a copper bottom for under $50." She buys the first one that meets that criteria. We might think maximizers make better choices--after all, they read reviews and know the specs. Sure, their decisions are a little better, but not by much. More importantly, they are less likely to be happy with their decisions.  How does all this apply to your dating life? This article talks about being single in LA. It points out that while big cities offer lots of choices, having too many choices of whom to date creates an illusion that it's possible to find a "perfect" match. In Schwartz's parlance, it makes us into maximizers; we're less satisfied with the person we're dating. On the other hand, if you're stuck in a small town, there's not a lot of choice, so you naturally become a satisficer. You find someone who matches you reasonably well and you're pretty darn happy.
Of course, dating for queers is different. There aren't as many of us, so maybe we're always satisficers, even in most big cities. Or maybe because so many of us date online, it creates a "maximizer" mentality regardless of where we live. What do you think about all this? What kind of cities have you had the most luck dating in? Did you find your significant other in a giant pool or a small one?
7 Comments
Renee
8/28/2012 08:26:08 am
I met my wife online after dating, without success, for many months. I lived in the SF Bay Area, gay Mecca, and found it very difficult. Everyone seemed to be damaged from lots of failed relationships or extremely picky. It was too easy to "change partners and dance".
Lane
8/28/2012 08:50:14 am
I 'did my time' in tiny towns as a younger person- some as small as 325 residents... This being said, at age 26 I moved to a larger city to find more people like me, meaning queers and people who weren't bigots and/or conservatives (no offense to anyone- we just don't mesh ideologically). What I found was that though I was a super-minority in the small town, I was anonymous in a large city; this is both good and bad.
But wouldn't what you were looking for be as important as where you live? That is, dating as socializing as opposed to dating to find your Hearts Desire? 8/30/2012 09:25:15 am
I would think that if nothing else, a big city offers a bigger community, which is something that I am sadly lacking where I live. It doesn't help that I am kind of crunchy granola bar looking, so I don't think people (even lesbians) readily identify me as gay. And I'm not even looking to date, just to have a lesbian community. In a big city, you could utilize meetup and the LGBT community center, etc to at least get a circle of lesbian friends. In a small town where you are one of the only ones, it is a lot harder. And without that circle of friends, the dating options are really limited.
Kat
8/31/2012 01:46:12 am
I've been single in three very different big cities, and never in a small town.
I came out in LA, but was too shy to try dating. I ended up with a wonderful cohort of lesbians that I hung out with and was half in crush with many of them. The conversation was fantastic (my brain is the organ that lights my crotch on fire). I moved to KY, where I started dating and dating. I was looking for emotional and sexual experience more than long-term commitment. I needed to know who I clicked with when I had the gender right (I was 29 when I came out). I didn't really find anyone who clicked, but I learned a lot about myself--1. I am more femme-ish and prefer butch-ish women. 2. I need good conversation to satisfy me, not just good rolling-in-the-sack times. I learned other things, but those are the most important. I also learned that meeting and flirting in public is way more than flirting and meeting online, even though the people you meet online might actually be more "your type."
I often wonder how common the intellectual connection is for most people. For me, if there wasn't that connection fairly quickly, nothing would happen. If we couldn't talk for hours on end, and start doing that within days of meeting it wasn't going to go anywhere. Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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