The old but newly popular notion that one’s love life may be analyzed as an economy is flawed—and it is destroying relationship.
E ver since her final relationship finished this previous August, Liz was consciously attempting to not treat dating as a “numbers game.” By the 30-year-old Alaskan’s very own admission, but, this hasn’t been going great.
Liz happens to be going on Tinder times usually, often numerous times a week—one of her New Year’s resolutions would be to continue every date she ended up being invited on. But Liz, who asked become identified only by her very first name to avoid harassment, can’t escape a sense of impersonal, businesslike detachment through the entire pursuit.
“It’s like, вЂIf this does not go well, you will find 20 other guys who appear to be you during my inbox.’ And I’m sure they feel the exact same way—that you will find 20 other girls that are ready to go out, or whatever,” she said. “People are noticed as commodities, instead of people.”
It’s understandable that somebody like Liz might internalize the theory that dating is a game of probabilities or ratios, or a market for which people that are single need certainly to keep shopping until they find “the one.” The concept that a dating pool can be analyzed as being a market or an economy is actually recently popular and incredibly old: For generations, individuals have been explaining newly solitary people as “back in the marketplace” and examining dating in terms of supply and need. [Read more...]