The perfect match for you
The following is something that I concluded years ago but never put down on paper. I’m (still) working on my travelogue through Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, from last year, and came across this in my notes. Time to tell the world:
Pure mathematical reasoning tells you there is one, and only one, person in the world that ‘fits’ you best. You can theoretically consider all traits in any person and classify how this combination of details, weighted by importance, matches your own character. The quality of this match can be captured in a value, one number between, say, 1 and 10. It then follows that that there can be only one (assuming a continuous scale for the value of the match) individual in the world that matches you best.
Then, it becomes interesting to notice that so many people find this match so close to home. Is it possible that similar cultural backgrounds make people fit better? Most probably, but cultural identity is seldom something that’s limited to a certain town or province and more generally spans a number of related countries.
A far more probable conclusion is that people, in general, are satisfied with a less then optimal match. As long as a certain threshold has been reached, people are satisfied and of course, some people are more easily satisfied than others and other people match better with more people. Still, some people are satisfied with a ‘6’, while others are only satisfied with a ‘9’ or higher.
Of course, there is nothing that dictates that the ‘perfect 10’ actually exists for each and everyone of us, meaning that your best match, to your knowledge (say your current partner), might actually the best match in the world. However, considering the sheer size of the world, this is simply highly unlikely.
An additional difficulty is the flow of time. Someone who might be a ‘9’ at one point, can change to a ‘6’ at another point in time. People change and with that the quality of a match. Breaking up or divorcing, therefore, is not a shame. Why maintain an unhealthy relationship? However, social ‘side effects’ also need to be taken into account when calculating the quality of match. If you have kids, or shared experiences, a match might become better, not necessarily because of the other person’s character, but by ‘external’ factors.
Still, breaking up always poses the issue that although person A might no longer be a good enough match for person B, the reverse doesn’t necessarily hold. No doubt, George Cloony is the best match for many a girl. How to capitalise on this?