The problem is with our social conception of dating. As I said earlier in this thread: "Think about how many people you know. Then think about how many of them are good friends. Then think about how many of those are best friends. The friend you can go on a month long backpacking trip with and not get annoyed with or tired of once. Pretty rare, huh? Now add sexual compatibility to that. If you find your forever-mate after 3 months and a few tinder dates, you'd better be buying lottery tickets too..." Yet despite this incredibly difficult task, conventional wisdom and Hollywood teach us all sorts of things that are contrary to reality such as: - The helpless male who just needed the right woman to see his inner Casanova. - You have to fight for what's important? Why should the most important friendship be fought for when all my other friendships were not? - Going to counseling. If you have kids, go to counseling. If you don't, find someone who likes who you are, and you want to please without the guidance of a third party. - The entire tradition and industry behind weddings. A ceremony where the town walked 300 meters from their home to see a couple 17 year olds get married and give them the basics required to start a family because they literally have nothing. Now it's a parade where you spend a small fortune, you get some appliances you don't need in exchange for feeding mediocre food to the guests who wasted some vacation time to attend an event that, despite being indistinguishable from any other wedding and repeated thousands of times per day, stresses the newlyweds out for a year getting ready for it. It's all a sham. Go on lots of dates. If you don't leave the first date positively captivated by the person, ask yourself why you would choose that specific human to spend five or more decades with. And if you got laid, don't trust your gut.