Mikey's Musings

Fundamental Economics & Dating 101

Are you familiar with the phrase "opportunity cost"? It's one of those economic terms. According to one definition, it is "the value of the next best alternative that must be given up when a choice is made." For example, the opportunity cost of writing this entry is the sleep I could be getting right now (which I'm sure I'll regret in the morning when I wake up for classes).

Tonight, the thought occurred to me that dating is full of opportunity costs. It's been said that guys have a problem when dating; that it's often hard for us to get in a steady relationship with someone because we wonder if there's someone out there who might be a better match for us. While that may be true in certain instances (by the way, I think it holds true for many girls as well), I personally think it's mostly a devil's tool to keep us from making those progressive steps toward an eternal destination. But that's beside the point I'm attempting to make. The point I'm trying to make is, that as we make those desicions of who we want to date, we are making opportunity costs. In the competitive game we call "dating" many of us have our eyes on usually more than one person. We keep our lines out in the water, waiting for a snag. When we finally get one, and if it's the fish we desire, we reel in and put away the fishing poles. However, many times we analyze and wonder to ourselves, "Hmm, but I wonder if a better fish might come to one of the other poles." But how long until that fish finally breaks loose from the hook and leaves us still with nothing?

It's interesting how decisions affect outcomes of events and even relationships with other people. The decisions you make in one instant presents opportunity costs as well. For example, if you buy a meal at a fast food, you give up that much that could have gone toward a date or some other social event. Consequently, every decision you make brings a sacrifice and a loss of something, somehow. Dating holds to the same principle. I don't think there is one specific person out there you are supposed to marry. That is fate, or destiny, and that takes away our agency. The only fate or destiny I believe in is the kind that we create for ourselves through our choices.

Choices do create consequences and so it is with dating. As mentioned previously, there is not one specific person out there. There are many, I feel. This is where opportunity cost also comes in. With any of those "potential spouses" comes a kaleidoscope of experiences. If you were to marry one person, you would have different experiences than if you were to marry someone else. Not that a specific set of experiences would be better than another. It would be because the circumstances are different. You are still set out toward your eternal destination (hopefully for us all, that is to be with our Heavenly Father, since we should have righteous goals in sight). And so, when we choose to be with someone, the opportunity cost(s) is the choice of being with someone else that could have also been a great match. That choice, in turn, affects the outcome of our relationships with the other "potentials" around us, as well as the experiences we will have with them.

No pressure, right? I love economics and enjoy studying and analyzing relationships people have with others. I enjoy taking those kind of things and seeing how gospel principles intertwine in our everyday events and lives. Opportunity cost really is a gospel principle when you think about it. Choices and consequences are other gospel principles as well. But it's getting late and way past my bedtime, so those discussions will hold for another day. If this entry makes absolutely no sense, then you can count them for nothing but the ramblings of a sleep-deprived college student who is trying to make sense of the senseless world around him.

And thus I close this mini-dissertation: if there are those, whose life I've made a bit more troubling and stressful with "making the right decision", I offer these gentle words of comfort: you only have to be at the right place at the right time, making the right decisions. There. Now doesn't that put a load off?!