[svachalek]

Interesting. I once read somewhere that you should date at least... 6? people and leave before it gets too serious, before settling down with anyone. It seemed to imply there was math involved but it didn't explain. I think it must be the same statistics here, with some estimate of how many people you could meet and burn through without getting too old. I think people just don't really work this way but otherwise it makes some sense.

[fastasucan]

I highly disagree with this, whats the point of dating others if you are perfectly happy with the one you are dating right now? Do you really lose out in life if there might be someone "better", even though you are happy?

[andai]

I've seen stats that correlated number of previous partners with divorce risk. But I always wondered if that was a correlation rather than causation (i.e. both of those factors sharing underlying causes).

An obvious example is that a person from a culture where sex before marriage is unacceptable is also from a culture where divorce is frowned upon.

[paulryanrogers]

Someone from Uzbekistan told me that a girl can only date one man, and must marry him or her reputation is ruined forever. So when her now-husband wanted to date her, he had to take care to avoid making it official before they were sure to marry.

The US has a lot of subcultures, so I too doubt the usefulness of such studies.

Then again, for some leaving the subculture they know carries a very high social cost. Hopefully new generations will break some of these barbarous traditions.

[tomr75]

it depends on how many people you expect to date in your lifetime though

these days with dating apps can prob date way more than 18..