People Should Break Up More
The following is the transcript of my closing editorial from episode 150 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast
Pronatalism is big these days. Everyone is trying to urge young people to get married and have families. And almost all mainstream thought on this issue is that to encourage family formation, we should encourage people to stay together once they’ve started dating. Breakups are bad according to the conventional wisdom. What they want people to do is settle for the person they’ve got.
The problem is that’s backwards. Falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy is not virtuous. I know a lot of people who want kids but are in danger of aging out of that being possible. Every single one of them is in this position because they wasted their younger years on a partner who was not right for them. They stayed together far too long because people told them things like “relationships take work” or “compromise is key” or “there’s no settling down without settling for.” Predictably, it didn’t work out, and they can never get that time back. Other people had kids with a partner, but split up later and wish they had picked a better matched coparent. The common theme here is that they stayed with their partner too long when they knew they should leave, and ended up investing their time, energy, and resources in a relationship that didn’t pay off.
Meanwhile, the people I know in the best relationships, who feel happiest and most fulfilled, have refused to settle. I’ve had several friends who set out to find a spouse. Some of them did serial monogamy, dating one person at a time, and sticking with anyone who seemed ok, even if they didn’t inspire strong feelings or treat them the way they wanted. Predictably, none of those people are married. My most successful friend just dated as many people as possible. She was very liberal with first dates, and often had a new first date every day. But she would only schedule second dates if she felt drawn to a person. She ended up finding her husband in under six months. My theory is that by exposing herself to so many people, it was easy for her to recognize it when she found a really good match. She had so much experience meeting men that she instantly noticed the man who wasn’t like the others.
Traditionally, the ideal is to only date one person. You marry your high school sweetheart and you’re a virgin on your wedding day. But we’re not stuck in that world now. Thanks to modern communication technology, there is an abundance of potential dates. You don’t have to settle for a person who isn’t what you’re looking for. But the dark side of abundance is that there’s often a “grass is greener” effect, where you imagine a checklist of (often superficial) traits you’re looking for in a partner, and you’re never happy with anyone because you think your perfect partner is just a swipe away. And you don’t have enough experience dating to know what actually matters and actually makes you happy. The way to split the difference is to actually date a lot of people. Get a truly visceral sense of what your dating pool is like. Develop an intuitive sense of what you like and don’t like. And when you realize someone isn’t right for you, break up. Then when you meet a person who stands out of the pack, you’ll realize it and hang on to them.