> It's forcing yourself to keep the number of active pursuits low enough to manage. If you don't kind of commit to seeing if someone is going to pan out, then they won't." This is of course the actual solution to the problem I experience with modern dating.
This problem is solved in a culture where friends and family suggest matchups. Of course, this requires a decent and somewhat large network in the first place, but each agent is incentivized to show matches that are somewhat in each other’s leagues (for the agent’s reputation), and each single person is incentivized to not burn their reputation in the network so they avoid churning through possible matches in pursuit of a “better” match.
You also get a somewhat reasonable background check via the agent proposing a possible match since they might have a cursory knowledge of the proposed match’s history and family and whatnot.
This problem is solved in a culture where friends and family suggest matchups. Of course, this requires a decent and somewhat large network in the first place, but each agent is incentivized to show matches that are somewhat in each other’s leagues (for the agent’s reputation), and each single person is incentivized to not burn their reputation in the network so they avoid churning through possible matches in pursuit of a “better” match.
You also get a somewhat reasonable background check via the agent proposing a possible match since they might have a cursory knowledge of the proposed match’s history and family and whatnot.