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Comment by kareemm | Hacker News Reader

A good left-brained friend of mine was dating heavily in the late 2000s as he was in "wife finding mode".

He had a spreadsheet -- called girls.xls -- where he kept track of important details about each woman he went on a date with.

We were sitting around musing about how hard it must be to keep track of the key details given all the dates he was going on, and he let drop that he had a spreadsheet.

He never showed it to anybody and it didn't sound creepy - it was genuinely a tool he used in good faith given the volume of info he was trying to keep track of.

And, he ended up marrying #42.

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I don't really consider myself left-brained, but I've always had a hard time remembering names. Partially because I'm not great at empathizing with folks I just meet, and partially because I genuinely don't care that much. Around college, I discovered this is absolutely not a great trait to have (incidentally, also most applicable when meeting women), so I started a Names file in my phone. I have hundreds of names in there now in the format "First Name - small salient description."

People are amazed at how great I am at remembering names and details. It's become almost a super-power, it's weird how writing things down can completely change how people perceive you. It's really cool to scroll through the names and see people I met years ago: the cute barista that moved away right after COVID, an old neighbor's boyfriend, a coworker's dog (I extended the list to also include pets). Brings back good memories and often makes me smile.

I do the same but without writing down anything. I just keep it in my head. I always joke with how creepy I feel when I coincidentally meet someone for the second time after months, at a party or something and start to bring up details about that person into the conversation we are having. For now, everyone has been happy and kinda flattered that a pretty much unknown guy is able to remember precise details about their lives but I feel like a psycho.

I did this a loooong time ago before there was really internet dating. Had a decision analysis tool I wrote in excel 97. Married a match in 2002. She was a crazy narcissist and made my life misery for 18 years until I divorced her.

Beware the tools you create, for the input corpus isn't necessarily valid over time. People change.

So that's why the answer is 42 !

Even better, in the original novel, the mice's guess for the ultimate question of life, universe, and everything is "how many roads must a man walk down?"

After the divorce he discovered a bug in his VLOOKUP.

Narcissist flag was missing in my original dataset.

I kept a note on my phone with details about my girlfriend (now wife) that I would otherwise easily forget. Favorite flowers, songs, restaurants, etc. As I got to know her family I briefly had a few lines for her parents and siblings but now that we're married I can just bug her for info instead.

I was probably 24 years old before I realized dating multiple people was even a thing. I figured you talked to and dated a person until you either decided you weren't having a good time or you married them.

Note that it's not universally true around the world. In the US, yes. If you do this in the UK, it will result in an evening where you end up ordering a taxi and slipping out the back door while two women are pulling each other's hair extensions out outside a pub and trying to beat the opponent with a shoe.

Yes this actually happened to me.

I think it depends on expectations. I can't imagine how anybody raised in the west would expect exclusivity a) after a couple of dates and b) without a conversation.

As a 24 year old, that honestly just sounds stressful. I feel like many 24 year old have a lot going on, personally i don't understand how people would have the time.

Is he still married ?

Yep! Happily, with kids.

Of course he did.

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