Midnight Musings

This monologue doesn’t deny attraction, biology, standards, or choice. It rejects the worship of endless options, and the lie that attention equals value. The marketplace may exist, but endless participation in it turns discernment into addiction.  

There’s a lie promulgated in modern society, and its endless abundance, that there are forever limitless options. The illusion of abundance in partners best exemplified by the numerous dating apps out there, and the countless faces on them. This can lead to a different but related problem: the paradox of choice. When someone is so suffused in options, they can become paralyzed and be unable to choose. Or, they may play the field, constantly seeking their best, favored, or ideal option… which is essentially the same thing. 

Therein lies the illusion hidden inside modern abundance: it whispers that there will always be another option, another face, another match, another message, another chance, another body, another thrill. Dating apps did not create this weakness in human nature, but they gave it a machine to live inside. They broadened the field, multiplied access, and trained people to believe that possibility itself was proof of value. But possibility isn’t compatibility. Attention isn’t intimacy. Access isn’t commitment. And abundance, when not governed by discipline, does not make people wiser. It often makes them restless.

This is the paradox of choice applied to the human heart. When people believe they’ve got limitless options, they often become less capable of choosing well. They second-guess peace because it feels too quiet, mistake novelty for chemistry, confuse intensity with depth. They keep searching the sky for one perfect star and lose sight of the moon already lighting the ground beneath them.

The language of the “sexual marketplace” is ugly. I dislike it, because it can make men and women sound like products on a shelf, collapsing an entire multifaceted individual into a handful of pictures and prompts on an app, or a brief (brief being anywhere between a few moments to a few hours) interaction in a social setting. But it describes an uncomfortable truth: people do evaluate one another. They evaluate beauty, confidence, stability, warmth, status, discipline, emotional safety, sexual desirability, future potential, and perceived access to a better life. That doesn’t make human beings commodities; it means attraction has patterns, and pretending otherwise doesn’t make us noble. It only makes us naive. But market awareness mustn’t become market worship.

The illusion of abundance also teaches people to confuse options with leverage. A person with many matches may believe they have many possibilities, but most attention is shallow. Most access is temporary. Most interest is untested. Having options does not mean having alignment. It may only mean having noise. And in a low-friction environment where ghosting and rejection happen without consequences, and accountability is all but absent, it can confuse attention with desirability.

A woman’s value isn’t proven by how many men want access to her body. Attention is cheap. Desire is common. Lust isn’t a crown or character trait. Being wanted casually by many men isn’t the same as being cherished deeply by one worthy man. Her relational value is revealed by whether a man of substance sees in her peace, loyalty, depth, warmth, character, stability and legacy – and chooses to build with her. 

And the same blade cuts both ways.

A man’s value isn’t proven by how many women he can attract, impress, entertain, or take to bed. Conquest isn’t character. Charisma isn’t commitment. Sexual access isn’t proof of masculine excellence. His relational value is revealed by the life he has built, the discipline he embodies, the steadiness he offers, the responsibility he carries, and whether a woman of substance can trust him with her peace, her future, and her vulnerability. Provision matters. Sexual attraction matters. Ditto stability and biology. Anyone pretending otherwise is selling fantasy.

Beauty matters, but beauty is not universal, nor is it sufficient. What one person finds magnetic, another may find ordinary. Attraction is filtered through temperament, readiness, values, physical preference, and timing. Here’s the thing: none of these are sufficient by themselves. Beauty without character becomes vanity. Provision without integrity becomes leverage. Desire without discipline? Chaos. Options without discernment become addiction. 

This is why dating is important  – you’re literally vetting for compatibility, alignment, shared values and  morals. Talk’s cheap. Actions matter.  You want to find misalignment sooner rather than later, so as to not waste time – yours or theirs – or risk tearing apart what you may have built together. But you also want to ensure you are building together; relationships evolve, as do the individuals in them.

The modern dating world has convinced too many people that freedom means keeping every door open. But a life of open doors can still become a hallway to nowhere. At some point, maturity requires choosing. Not settling. Not surrendering. Choosing. Making a go of it with the person whose presence brings peace, not performance. Choosing the one whose character remains when novelty fades. Working with the one who can build, repair, commit, and grow.

The tragedy of abundance is that it teaches people to chase the best possible option while becoming less capable of recognizing a good one. And worse, it tempts them to overestimate what they can demand while underdeveloping what they can offer. Perfection is an admirable goal to aim for, but perfect is the enemy of the real. Everyone wants the highest-caliber partner they can attract. Fine. Then become someone a high-caliber partner would be wise to choose. Because oftentimes, the search for perfect is not discernment at all. It’s fear dressed as standards: fear of vulnerability, fear of choosing, fear of being seen, or fear of facing what one actually brings to the table – aka, a romantic relationship with another person.

The marketplace may grant attention. But only character and effort sustain love.

FIDES – HONORES – INTEGRITAS