A prominent trend among the urban populace and anyone’s social circle is that, in general, is how most of us care about how our potential romantic interests fit into the pre-existing narrative of our lives, among our friends, what their beliefs are, and so on. It’s like we have forgotten that what matters more is whether we genuinely care about them beyond a surface level. Our primary area of concern is rarely mental state or the turmoil of their lives or how we can build something lasting with them,

The metrics are all wrong in modern dating. We have boxed our romantic interests so much that we gauge the compatibility of a potential partner through how fast they get back to our texts, whether or not they fall into the same narrowly defined political spectrum we ourselves belong to or if they have the “right” stance whatever the week’s newsflash happens to be. We commonly need to take the time to properly get familiar with the person of our attention beyond their superficial layers and shared interests.

We are morbidly focused on how dating this person affects our friendship with other friends in the echo chamber we have built up. We value their approval, or if us dating our person of interest appeases them more than how we feel about them. Being active in these echo chambers has forced us to accept only everything we think is right. We are not even remotely tolerant towards hearing a slight variation of our beliefs.

This rigidness is forcing us only to consider someone that fits a grocery store checklist and has no leeway for something else that could meet our needs. Still, we are so laser-focused on ticking all the boxes on our checklist that we don’t even consider people marginally outside of it even for a second. 

The indifference towards everything else that makes up a person other than the parts of them we relate to is a damaging thing. Another huge fault in our approach is that we first decide we like someone absolutely, and only then do we get to know them. That fundamentally is the wrong approach. And it should be the other way around.

This laser-focused approach to finding common ground is causing us to miss out on all kinds of great connections we could be having, not just romantic ones. Instead of shunning potential matches based on where they stand politically or socially, we ought to get to know where they’re coming from and share our point of view with them. This brings two people closer and gives us a much better fundamental insight into how they and their thought process work, which will do us much better when it comes to finding true compatibility