There’s a common assumption in dating discourse that increasing your standards is always an improvement—that more selectivity leads to better partners and better long-term outcomes.

I don’t think this scales that cleanly.

There’s a difference between healthy and reasonable standards (filtering out genuine incompatibility and harmful behavior) and ever-increasing selectivity (continually adding preferences and dealbreakers beyond what's important to you).

Beyond a certain baseline, more selectivity doesn’t just improve choice—it changes the process itself:

It increases filtering of potentially good partners, not just bad ones (false negatives).

It encourages optimization of traits that don’t reliably predict long-term relationship quality.

It shifts focus from building compatibility to pre-selecting “ideal” partners.

It makes commitment harder, because alternatives are always cognitively available.

Dating and optimisation don't always to well together. Past a point, more criteria can shrink your viable pool faster than it improves actual outcomes.

There’s also a dissatisfaction loop. The more selective you become, the easier it is for normal imperfections to become exit conditions rather than issues to work through. This can blur the line between outgrowing a relationship and never fully committing to building one.

The reason why standards are in quotations is because it people's standards can be poorly defined. One can easily confuse what they cannot do without with what would simply be nice to have, and treat both as equally valid dealbreakers.

Being overly selective isn't inherently better than having low standards as it brings its own problems. It eventually has diminishing returns. Even if you get what you want, it may not produce lasting satisfaction, because the mindset of “i could do better” can matter more than what is already sufficient and/or can grow if both parties make the effort.