The secretary problem
You’ve probably heard about secretary problem in the context of hiring. But today, I’m going to tell you about how this applies to relationships, and choosing a life-partner.
If you are unfamiliar with the problem, let me quickly explain this to you.
Imagine an administrator who wants to hire the best secretary out of n rankable applicants for a position. The applicants are interviewed one by one in random order. A decision about each particular applicant is to be made immediately after the interview. Once rejected, an applicant cannot be recalled. During the interview, the administrator gains information sufficient to rank the applicant among all applicants interviewed so far, but is unaware of the quality of yet unseen applicants.
The question is about the optimal strategy (stopping rule) to maximize the probability of selecting the best applicant. If the decision can be deferred to the end, this can be solved by the simple maximum selection algorithm of tracking the running maximum (and who achieved it), and selecting the overall maximum at the end. The difficulty is that the decision must be made immediately.
Anyone in the market for a life partner usually follows a similar approach - they meet a few people without too many expectations and keep an open mind until they find a benchmark.
In the marriage market, there are two types of people:
people who identify their secretary quickly, and settle down
and, the ones who don’t
The ones who settle down with their first best prospective spouse dominate the arranged marriage market. The spectrum ranges from people who have low expectations to people who get very lucky. To be honest, there’s not much to be said about these fellows. So, maybe let’s talk about
… The ones who don’t?
I have a friend who’s been in the market for a while now, but it’s been impossible for him to find “the one” since his secretary dumped him. They were in love, or that’s what he thought. He’d been in love before, but there was something different about this one.
That’s the thing with unprecedented physical intimacy - once you throw it into the mix, suddenly you’ve shown more skin in the game (quite literally). As a consequence, he thought they were meant to be together. When they broke up, he was devastated.
He blamed himself for years, he still does. Some part of him still lusts after her and longs for her, but this insecurity prevents him from making a real connection with anyone else.
He’s been meeting so many interesting women over the years, but it’s always been either her grammar, her lack of passion, a lack of spark or her crazy mother. He believes his ex is the best he could have got. In fact, with each passing day, this belief is re-enforced as all the bitter memories with her fade away.
You are in love -> you experience unprecedented physical intimacy -> you are more vulnerable -> lose power in the relationship -> you get dumped -> you think it’s your fault, but in reality, shit like this happens for no good reason -> you obsess over this person like a madcap -> refuse to open up to anyone new, yet think that you are doing everyone a favour by meeting new people -> while you don’t find a new partner, you feel fairly accomplished for having been in love at least once -> the high begins to wear off as you meet more people who are less interesting -> people start rejecting you because honestly, no one wants to be with someone who doesn’t make an effort -> you start questioning your worth -> take a break from the market -> get back -> take a break -> get back again.
Before you know it, a decade goes by.
Your ex is definitely not the best you can get, he/she is at best a benchmark, contrary to how you feel at this moment. The best lies ahead of you, so look up.
I have another friend who was stuck in a similar limbo after having dated a couple of men, unable to find a partner in the arranged marriage market, especially after a bad break up. She told me she loved her ex for being so confident and sure of himself, except she didn’t really like that they fought so much all the time.
Although that didn’t stop her from comparing every guy she met in the market to her ex. She knew he wasn’t the best she could get, but she actually wanted to outdo herself by finding a guy who is opinionated like her ex, but would also agree with her.
But the thing with being opinionated is that it comes at the cost of concurring with others. While she was right in believing that her ex was the secretary, she was optimising for qualities that were inherently at odds with each other. So, she was stuck in an infinite loop until she saw the light of irony in her checklist.
She got married earlier this year. He is VERY opinionated and doesn’t hesitate to disagree when he needs to, but she loves that about him. Oh, and they fight all the time, but she knows better now.
If you find yourself comparing everyone to your ex, know that the best is actually yet to come. The best solution to the secretary problem till date suggests that there is a 37% chance that a best candidate is selected. Not sure if this solution accounts for mutual matching, so let’s say there’s a 50% chance someone you’ve chosen also likes you back, that’s an 18.5% chance you will end up selecting the best candidate from among the ones you interview.
Now, 18.5% is by no means a small number.
For those of you who are having trouble believing that this is a significant number, I’m reminded of these lines from Shantaram:
Some loves are like that. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw out your pride to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and independence. After a while you start throwing people out - friends, everyone you know, and it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.
The hardest bit about love is not falling in it. Actually, that’s the easy bit, because it usually happens when you least expect it. Staying in love is the hardest. Right after that is falling out of love - disassociating every part of you from a relationship you invested in. You may have lost a lover, but remember, at least you’ve found yourself new secretary benchmark.