SHOULD PEOPLE SATISFICE IN LOVE?

SHOULD PEOPLE SATISFICE IN LOVE? I think that people should satisfice on things they don’t care about and spend time on choice when they do care. I think that that is what usually people do rather than be paralyzed by choice. I choose my wine by the picture on the label. I spend more time on choosing books or beer. Sometimes, the most important factor in choosing coffee is how quickly I can get it. Apparently Starbucks believes that customers only like to travel six to eight minutes to get coffee, which explains the phenomenon that Homer Simpson observed, that there seems to be a Starbucks on every corner. Should people satisfice on critical life decisions, like marriage? No, I do not think they should. I’m a romantic who was lucky in love. But people have satisficed in love and not just in arranged marriages. I noted here that historically, in many villages, a boy or girl might have very few possible mates. John Tierney wrote an article this week arguing that New Yorkers have so many possible mates that they seek perfection, that they want somebody who fits a long list of precise criteria and that many never get married for that reason. Tierney says that for speed daters, with only a limited number of matches, on average there will be two or three dates out of every ten potential partners. With a computer profile, one can reject hundreds before choosing a date. I am told that an examination of women’s diaries in the nineteenth century found that women often characterized their choice of spouse by the phrase “he’ll do.”