The Hidden Cost of the Next Match
Online dating often feels like a system of comparisons—each profile, each conversation, each almost-connection quietly measured against the next. We tell ourselves we’re optimizing. Being thoughtful. Waiting for the right fit. But beneath that logic, something harder to name is at work. It doesn't feel like a mistake while you're doing it. It feels like discernment. And yet its cost shows up later—quietly, repeatedly, and in ways that are hard to trace back to the moment you made the choice.