This makes a nice news story, but based on the criteria mentioned, it is doomed to failure.
1. There are very, very few life-long partnerships. And of the ones that are, some of them are for reciprocal benefits (not love); some are because the people are too scared or complacent to leave; some are because the two are completely lacking in ambition and hope for a better future. Most people change over time, and most people change differently (especially different sexes). To imagine them remaining on a parallel trajectory through long life by nature (instead of sheer willpower or complacency) is naive.
2. Swiping left/right by looks is not for long term partnership. It is for short term physical excitement. And in that regard, it's a good start.
3. No amount of online communication or friend referrals will compare to frequently being around someone, getting to know them, and falling in love with them. This is a very low percentage game he's betting on (unless he's just betting on publicity, in which case he wins 15 minutes of fame).
4. Wait until the (unnamed nationality) recruiters get wind of this. For a chance of $7000, they will inundate him with dates. The smartest of them will promise to share half of it with the women, in which case he'll have more dates than he has time for. And if he has some money, the more desperate women will fake their way to marriage, winning the $3500 and potentially a comfortable life (only having to have sex with him a couple of times per week).
This may sound pessimistic, but it's really just an observation on traditional modern marriage. People don't work like the story books suggest, and the story books are based on fiction that doesn't represent the vast majority of human history.
The good news for him and anyone else who wants to expand their awareness is that one can have many good meaningful relationships and some really great physical relationships in one lifetime. And be happy through most of it.
None of what you say here imply or explain why his idea would be doomed (not to mention most of your assumptions are not always true or false and like most things depends on the person).
Not to mention points 2, 3 and 4 are completely unsubstantiated lol. How is this the top reply?
Because I replied early? I dunno, only 3 points. [edit - -1 points :P. So sad :( ]
His idea is doomed because he says, "I'm looking for somebody who has a kind heart, someone who's curious and maybe has a sense of humour, it doesn't have to be my sense of humour."... and he's depending on other people, with their own sensibilities and emotions, to identify people he might fit with?
This is not new. People forever (perhaps more often women) have been motivated to play matchmaker for their friends. If that method were most successful, dating apps wouldn't exist.
Another reason his idea is doomed is because he put money on it. That provides a perverse incentive which favors the person who can provide him the most dates (who can superficially entertain him until he weds one).
What you call unsubstantiated I call obvious.
2. Who out there believes that Tinder is where you find your life mate? Maybe it is now, I dunno... but it was certainly a hookup app for the first many years of its existence.
3. A friend is going to be more accurate than you would if you got to know someone naturally and fell in love with them?
4. Absolutely not unsubstantiated. Put any money value on something, and hordes of hungry gamers (not gamers, but gamers) will find a way to take the shotgun approach. After all, if one of his friends is able to keep his calendar booked with prospects, then that friend is more likely to win the prize.
That's way too cynical a view. It's often accurate, but it certainly does not describe all relationships. I've been married 8 years now and it's not at all like that. It's not a fairytale either, but it's a real love. While we've both grown and changed a lot, we haven't grown apart.
There's hope, and it's a tough dating world out there, but if you have your attitude is over before you start.
8 years? Not being flippant, but 8 years is one chapter. More than 8 years of my marriage were so great I couldn't imagine anything better (and I have not topped it with anyone since). I'm saying that you can and should enjoy relationships, but if you expect the impossible, it will end badly. It doesn't have to end badly! It could end naturally, with great respect and friendship.
No, my attitude is that one can have many meaningful chapters (perhaps more than one with the same partner). The problem is this shared assumption that relationships should never end. If one person can grow a lot in life, and you have two people together, the idea that they will both grow in the same ways which keep them sharing the same connection is _very_ ideallistic.
Add children, which certainly changes the parents, and you have even more variables. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do what is right for you at the time, have children, have a happy family, and enjoy it. It just means you should not think it's the end of the world if (when) people's directions begin to diverge.
You're correct that not all relationships last for a lifetime. Not all should last that long. But neither should none.
It varies, because people vary, and you have to both work at it and want similar things.
Fairytales aren't real, but that's also not a reason to just say all marriages won't last. That's obviously false. It's also not the end of the world, as you say, if in the end you've both grown so far apart neither can remember what you're doing together in the first place. You fight for a relationship up to a point, but there are limits.
Statistically most relationships don't last for the remaining lifetimes of the partners. I don't even have to back this up with footnotes. (30+ years ago it might have been true.) I will point out that if you go looking for stats, they can be very misleading as they often compare current new marriages against current divorces. They are not comparing original marriages to their eventual divorces.
My point, which seems to be missed everywhere, is not that you shouldn't try - it's that you should not make the duration a key metric. Live for today, and for the next year, and maybe collectively fantasize and plan about the nextd 5 years. This day zero focus on "forever" just sets people up for mysery if (when) things start to change for the worse.
Isn't now good enough? After all, we only live Now. If we spent more of now enjoying what we have now, then we might waste a lot less of the "good years" worrying about the next years.
While I disagree with this comment, I think that others who disagree should post substantive comments instead of snark. Shallow dismissals are missing an opportunity to refute claims you disagree with.
Unfortunately, I think most of the points here are spot on.
#2 (swiping is for physical excitement) and #4 (an offer of money creates incentives for un-genuine behavior) seem indisputable and deserve to be addressed
#1 (few life-long partnerships)
According to some random web site [1], about 45% of US marriages end in divorce. This seems to support assertion #1.
#3 (online communication does not compare to the quality of in-person communication): Seems like a no-brainer assertion to me, HN posts excepted... (j/k). Of course the online communication is supposed to lead to other opportunities to get to know someone better, so it should really be compared to hanging out in a bar or something. Which I would expect is also (relatively) ineffective at helping find a partner.
I mean, really I think the claim that there are few life-long partnerships is not relevant. A relationship needs a place to start and grow. Later failure of a relationship that "could have" worked out isn't an indication that the filters applied at the start are not functioning correctly.
It's not rocket science. It is, however, really hard. It's very hard to know whether to stay or go but i generally feel happy with marriage and kids. While it takes a lot of time and soul, it removes the need to be looking for someone, which can leave a lot of time for working on what i want to be working on. That's optimistic, but, hey.
Marriage and kids can be a very happy and enriching experience, for all involved. I'm not disputing that. (I had 15 years of magnificent marriage and have two amazing young adult children. I wouldn't trade that for anything.)
But this assumption that two people who find each other a perfect match now will still feel that way in 5, 10, 20, 40 years is just unrealistic. It would be much better if people understood that we are all unique, and we all grow and expand in different ways. Sometimes a couple grows in the same way (and usually they do, quite a lot); but sometimes one of the couple grows in a different direction - discovers something important to them which pulls them away. It doesn't mean there was a problem with the other person or the relationship. A very simple example is when one person finds their career developing and fulfilling, but the other partner has a happy life in a certain town, near their family, friends, etc. To stay together, one of them probably must give up something very important. But to realize that a parting doesn't mean losing connection, it just means going separate ways, is natural.
There are quite a few contrived scenarios in there, but I don't disagree with the last paragraph. For some people that sort of thing (not without effort, patience, understanding, caring, etc) can bring both spontaneous adventure deep discovery. Others are fortunate enough to find it primarily with one person.
It seems pessimistic, but it's only pessimism if you accept the current systems that are in place (economic, human relational, etc.).
I actually think that there can be great joy, mutual success, and net-postive happiness amongst people if they are willing to reconsider the rules and boundaries set by 1-20 generations before them.
Just as with studies and news articles, it's important to consider who benefits from the message being presented. Quite often, it's the "establishment".
After all, the establishment has tried to convince us that smoking was good for you, that mastubation would make you blind (and a host of other maladies), that burning fossil fuels wouldn't harm the environment, that eating low-fat packaged goods wouldn't make us fat, that drinking diet sodas wouldn't make us fat, that vaping wouldn't do some really wack stuff to us, that politicians represented us, etc. etc.
There are places in the world today where a woman breastfeeding in public is considered offensive. Who made that determination? (I use this example because it's about the most natural human activity, perhaps beside sex.) And yet, much of the US establishment wants us to believe that it's inappropriate. All of these crazy rules and artificial limitations could be much of what's wrong with our relationships and our behavior. I'm trying to point out the absurdity of things.
1. There are very, very few life-long partnerships. And of the ones that are, some of them are for reciprocal benefits (not love); some are because the people are too scared or complacent to leave; some are because the two are completely lacking in ambition and hope for a better future. Most people change over time, and most people change differently (especially different sexes). To imagine them remaining on a parallel trajectory through long life by nature (instead of sheer willpower or complacency) is naive.
2. Swiping left/right by looks is not for long term partnership. It is for short term physical excitement. And in that regard, it's a good start.
3. No amount of online communication or friend referrals will compare to frequently being around someone, getting to know them, and falling in love with them. This is a very low percentage game he's betting on (unless he's just betting on publicity, in which case he wins 15 minutes of fame).
4. Wait until the (unnamed nationality) recruiters get wind of this. For a chance of $7000, they will inundate him with dates. The smartest of them will promise to share half of it with the women, in which case he'll have more dates than he has time for. And if he has some money, the more desperate women will fake their way to marriage, winning the $3500 and potentially a comfortable life (only having to have sex with him a couple of times per week).
This may sound pessimistic, but it's really just an observation on traditional modern marriage. People don't work like the story books suggest, and the story books are based on fiction that doesn't represent the vast majority of human history.
The good news for him and anyone else who wants to expand their awareness is that one can have many good meaningful relationships and some really great physical relationships in one lifetime. And be happy through most of it.