We have two contradictory core beliefs on dating today, often believed by the same people:

  1. We do not need dating. We can be happy single. Dating is not that important. You can be alone and have a complete life.

  2. Finding the one is really important. You cannot make mistakes on this because otherwise you will be unhappy. Always find red flags and vet.

As an analogy, if you are dying of hunger, it shall not matter too much the quality of the food. However, on dating it seems that you either find the best food or you do not eat at all. There is no middle ground even when eventually people do find a middle ground naturally after failures.

Commenters will say that dating is not like eating... you need to eat, and you need to eat food with a minimum quality or higher. However, my point is that there is no middle point as there is in literally everything else. We are told to dump our partner if they are not 100% as we expect, so dating is important on that aspect, yet also we are told it is not important, so you can stay single and be happy.

So we have people who are unhappy being single and will always be single because they do not lower standards. You also have people that have partners but also believe they are not good enough. Both of those groups are people who try to hold those two contradictory beliefs. No compromise, not trying to reconcile them both.