Why Good Enough Beats Perfect in the Dating Game

I talk to smart, accomplished women every week who are stuck in the same situation. They swipe through umpteen profiles a night, comparing and cross-referencing, and somehow, after all that effort, they still can't pick anyone.

Here's what 20 years of helping daters be more effective has taught me: the problem usually isn't that there's no one good out there. The problem is how you're searching.

You keep holding out for the best possible option instead of a genuinely good one, convinced the right person is one more swipe away. That habit is costing you much time, energy, and your actual shot at love.

A Nobel-winning psychologist named Herbert Simon spent his career studying how people make decisions, and his insight applies directly to your dating life. People who search endlessly for the best choice, known as maximizers, end up less satisfied than people who pick something good enough and move forward, known as satisficers. Here's what that means for your dating situation and how you evaluate potential partners.

The Dating World Rewards Good Enough, Not Perfect

In recent years, dating apps have handed us more options than any generation before us has ever had. That's good news in a lot of ways. The catch is that a bigger pool invites constant comparison, and that habit chips away at how you feel about whoever you finally pick. Treating every match like a comparison test isn't a good idea, no matter how many potential partners the app puts in front of you.

Researchers who studied this question after Simon's death built a scale to measure where people land between maximizer and satisficer. Maximizers turned out to be less happy, more prone to regret, and more likely to measure themselves against everyone around them. Satisficers don't have low standards, just a standard of good enough for me instead of the best that exists.

That's basically my whole coaching philosophy, backed up by a Nobel Prize.

Dating Apps and Platforms Are Making This Harder

I'm glad dating platforms exist. They've opened the dating landscape to a lot of people who'd never have met otherwise. But online dating sites are also an endless buffet, and an endless buffet makes it hard to ever feel done.

Having that much choice is actually exhausting.

What actually ends the buffet is a structure. A real framework for evaluating a match across your first 3 dates, instead of an algorithm or your own anxiety deciding, is the difference between endless swiping and an actual relationship.

What Older Adults Already Know About Love

Here's some good news. Older adults have a real edge here. Life experience teaches you what actually matters in a partner, and what's just noise. Older people, and older women especially, tend to name their own must-haves faster than younger daters do, because they've already lived through a marriage, a divorce, or a few serious romantic relationships that taught them the hard way, whether they were hunting for a partner or just a friend with benefits.

With divorce rates being what they are, single women over 50 are dating with far more self-knowledge than they had the first time around. Whether you're a first-time dater or an older woman starting over again, use it.

Younger Women, Younger Men, and the Same Age Old Game

This isn't only your age group's issue. Young people, younger women, and younger men swipe just as compulsively, and new people entering new relationships report the same restless feeling. But you have an advantage they don't: a little bit of hard-won life experience about what a good relationship actually requires, physically, emotionally, and practically. That's a great way to skip years of trial and error.

The 3 Date Rule: How to Actually Evaluate a Potential Partner

This is where my 3 H method comes in. On any first date, you're gathering information, not falling in love. By the third date, you should have a real read on whether this new partner is a green light on Head, Heart, and Hoo-ha.

Learning to honor all 3 of your Hs is foundational work. If you want structured guidance on exactly how to run this evaluation over your first 3 dates, join my free webinar, where I walk you through the entire framework in detail.

✅ Head: values, lifestyle, and the practical stuff of daily life

✅ Heart: emotional connection, communication, and feeling truly heard

✅ Hoo-ha: chemistry, physical intimacy, and genuine attraction

Anything below an 8 out of 10 on any of the 3 is an automatic no. But once someone clears an 8 across all three, stop looking for a 10. Staying there is satisficing, not settling, and it works.

A red flag is not the same as a dealbreaker. Learning the difference is the right thing to master before date 3, and a good way to stop rejecting genuinely good potential partners over things that don't actually matter.

My 3 date strategy gives you the structure for telling them apart before you're too invested to see clearly.

Physical Chemistry Still Counts

Good company matters, but so does chemistry. Don't talk yourself into a relationship with someone you're not attracted to just because he checks every other box, and don't dismiss a great match because the physical side needs warming up.

As a dating coach for 20 years, I've watched women override their own hoo-ha instincts more than any other H, usually because they were taught attraction is shallow. Attraction gets called shallow all the time. What it actually does is separate a love relationship from a good friendship. It doesn't have to be there on the first date, but the potential for it does need to be detectable.

Your New Script for Ending the Search

Here’s the self-assessment process for the next time you catch yourself maximizing: "Is this person good enough on Head, Heart, and Hoo-ha? If so, tell yourself: Then I’m staying present with this one instead of scrolling for someone better."

Say it out loud if you have to. This single sentence has saved my clients more heartache than almost any dating advice I give.

That's the whole shift: choosing good enough over chasing the best, and it's the exact muscle you build every time you stick to the 3H strategy and the 3-date rule instead of letting the addictive nature of the apps run the show.

You've now got the whole system laid out: the 3-H method, the 3-date deadline, and the difference between a red flag and a dealbreaker. That's the actual decision framework smart daters use instead of chasing an impossible ideal. If you want to walk through it with real scripts and structure, your next move is to come to my free webinar, 3 Secrets to Finding and Maintaining Healthy Love:

Love,

Frequently Asked Questions about Dating Over 50

Isn't it risky to settle for good enough instead of holding out for the best?

Good enough isn't settling. It means someone genuinely meets your Head, Heart, and Hoo-ha standards. Maximizers can't get off the hamster wheel and end up less happy, not more.

How do I know if I'm maximizing instead of dating normally?

If you're still comparing a new partner to other profiles after 3 real dates, that's maximizing. A genuinely good match should allow you to stop looking.

Are dating apps making this worse for older adults?

Yes, in one specific way. A bigger pool pulls you into constant comparison, and that habit lowers how satisfied you feel with whoever you choose.

What's the difference between a red flag and a dealbreaker?

A red flag is a repeating pattern that could be changed or tolerated. A dealbreaker is a fixed fact. It won't change, because the person can't change it or doesn't want to. Dealbreakers end things. Red flags deserve one honest conversation first.

Is it normal to still care about physical chemistry at my age?

Completely normal. Physical intimacy and attraction are a real part of most healthy love relationships. Don’t apologize for wanting it.