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I do believe high standards are behind a lot of the dating issues. Dating pools are so large that people hold out for the right combination of the things they find desirable--except they're never going to find that because they don't have exactly the right combination to attract that "perfect" match.

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I can't help but think that in 1910, both the concept of "fear of rejection" and "high standards" would have made no sense to people at the time. Yet I would agree that they are valid concepts today. We have to explore why these two concepts exist and why they did not exist in 1910. It seems valid to call them side effects of something bigger, what the bigger is I don't know. I don't see how society can address these two issues without addressing the other issues that lead to the existence of these.

I'm not sure why you believe that "high standards" and "fear of rejection" didn't exist a hundred years ago. Think Gatsby, from the Great Gatsby (published 1925): dude longed for human connection (hence throwing massive parties), but was terrified of being outed as not belonging to the social strata he found himself in. That's fear of rejection. People being to good for others is basis of the class system, and that predates written history.

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