The Problem with Modern Romance Is Too Much Choice

In the age of online dating there are more romantic options than there are fish in the, well, you know. On the appropriately named site Plenty of Fish, for instance, you can pore over profiles of hundreds or thousands of potential mates before deciding which ones to contact. Such unfettered choice means a better shot at true love—or so many daters believe. The more options you have, the assumption goes, the more likely you are to find the one who truly suits you.

Yet many daters are finding that less romantic choice yields top-notch results without all the angst. My longtime friend Shannon Whitaker, a family-practice physician in the Pittsburgh area, found her husband using eHarmony, which has its customers fill out a detailed compatibility survey, then sends them a restricted number of matches, typically anywhere from a few to a dozen or so at a time. Two weeks after she signed up for the site, Whitaker spotted a guy who intrigued her. They clicked so well that their second date stretched to 11 hours, and within months, they were starting to talk marriage. Whitaker was shocked—and thrilled—to have found the love of her life with relative ease. On sites with countless options, “there would have been so many people who would not have been good fits,” she says. “I don’t think I would have enjoyed weeding them all out—it would have been way too much work.”