Monday, October 13, 2014

Dating outside your league

If all of us could think objectively about other people with absolutely no bias, there is a fair chance that a guy's favourite girl may not be his girlfriend and the person he admires the most may not be his dad, but an uncle or even a distant acquintance. However, thankfully for us, we have our weird biases which ensure that it is indeed our childhood sweetheart (or the arranged marriage spouse) whom we love the most in the world and by some amazing co-incidence, we all have, individually, the best parents in the world. The probability that we all believe this at an objective level is very low- and if so, would greatly undermine human capabilities for reasoning. And I strongly believe that we know better than to be so naive.

I say 'thankfully for us', because had a person not had this bias, he would be completely shunned by the society. A guy who doesn't love his home-made food more than anything else? A guy who likes his aunt more than his mom? A guy who likes a girl he last talked to 10 years back more than his current wife? What kind of idiot would he be considered as? An honest idiot, but the degree of idiocy is unquestionably monumental. A completely logical(a person who thinks in black and white, without the grays) human being would really struggle to survive in this world. There should be an evolutionary explanation for loving all that is related to yourself- your town, family, close friends etc. more than things that you haven't experienced yet, or things that you have experienced but are not close to- for example people beyond your league. And the explanation is probably just selfishness- you like people more when there is a higher likelihood of them being useful to you, and not because of them being good human beings.

When it comes to a guy's relationship with his girlfriend, while there can be moments when the guy sincerely believes that there is this one person he came across due to sheer coincidence and happens to be the most amazing female in the world, it is unlikely that he thinks the same for a majority of his life. Think about it- out of 7 billion people, and around 3.5 billion females- say around 800 million of an age you can marry- of which say 100 million can communicate with you- and you think you found your dream girl after meeting a few dozen? The times when you sincerely feel so can be attributed to errors in human judgement (which are helpful at several instances, including at this aspect of loving your not-so-perfect partner) . A point to be noted here is that there may be people who do not really care if their partner is their ideal match, and a good number of people I am sure fall in this category- but I am a dreamer, and I write for dreamers.

As you might have figured out by the previous para, I do tend to think relatively more in black-and-white than the average person.

One thing to consider, given the things I've mentioned above is what you would do if you met a girl (or a guy in the case of girls; I've not mentioned counterparts elsewhere but please consider everything as being applicable to guys and girls) who is amazing and you do not think that you deserve her? On one side, you can try and 'get' her and if you were right initially, she might end up being worse off than she otherwise would've, with a 'better' guy and a happier life in general. And on the other side you can ignore her and not take the risk of (i) trying and failing to woo her (ii) successfully wooing her and making her life miserable. Point number two may not be considered by a lot of people, but a person who thinks in black-and-white- a person who believes in objective truth, will. Human (and animal instinct) is to go after her and so, it is not very feasible to not try wooing her, since your heart often doesn't understand our brain. Meanwhile, your judgement about the girl being in your league can always be wrong and hence it might be correct to err slightly on the side of trying to woo girls than to not. After all, losing out on a girl because of your mis-judgement is a bigger loss than trying for a girl and not getting her because she's out of your league.

 Unlike my other posts, I do not preach 'answers' in this post, and I'm still looking for an answer to this question. I've obviously tended to 'try' outside my league, but I've always had my reservations (and probably will continue to have them) and never gone ahead with 100% commitment. Perhaps the fact that such a question has popped up in my head will cause me to be inadequate for the girl in concern. But should it? This, and the other questions I leave to the reader to figure out. And as a friendly advice, even though it is good (probably) to think about such things, when it comes to practice, always go for it :P And in case you don't think you'll find the perfect girl/guy, the only thing I can say is that reading this post was a complete waste of time for you, unless you start dreaming because of it.

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