Times onlinedating

I learned of the phenomenon of “good enough” marriage, a term social anthropologists use to describe marriages that were less about finding the perfect match than a suitable candidate whom the family approved of for the couple to embark on adulthood And along with the sociologist Eric Klinenberg, co-author of my new book, I conducted focus groups with hundreds of people across the country and around the world, grilling participants on the most intimate details of how they look for love and why they’ve had trouble finding it.

Eric and I weren’t digging into ­singledom—we were trying to chip away at the changing state of love.

The first girl, he said, was “a little too tall,” and the second girl was “a little too short.” Then he met my mom. Let’s look at how I do things, maybe with a slightly less important decision, like the time I had to pick where to eat dinner in Seattle when I was on tour last year.

He quickly deduced that she was the appropriate height (finally! First I texted four friends who travel and eat out a lot and whose judgment I trust. Finally I made my selection: Il Corvo, an Italian place that sounded amazing. (It only served lunch.) At that point I had run out of time because I had a show to do, so I ended up making a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich on the bus.

I quizzed the crowds at my stand-up comedy shows about their own love lives.

People even let me into the private world of their phones to read their romantic texts aloud onstage.

These were women whom Ok Cupid had selected as potential matches for him based on his profile and the site’s algorithm.

Whether it’s where I’m eating, where I’m traveling or, God forbid, something I’m buying, like a lot of people in my generation—those in their 20s and 30s—I feel compelled to do a ton of research to make sure I’m getting every option and then making the best choice.

If this mentality pervades our decision­making in so many realms, is it also affecting how we choose a romantic partner?

But Derek of 2013 simply clicked an X on a web-browser tab and deleted her without thinking twice.

Watching him comb through those profiles, it became clear that online, every bozo could now be a stud.