Why “Good Enough” Beats “Perfect” in the Dating Game

I talk to smart, accomplished women every week who are stuck in the same loop: swiping through profile after profile, comparing and cross-referencing, and somehow still unable to settle on anyone.

Here’s what 20 years of helping daters in my coaching practice has taught me: the problem usually isn’t a shortage of good people; it’s 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, and that habit costs you 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 choose something good enough and move forward, known as satisficers.

The Dating World Rewards Good Enough, Not Perfect

Dating apps have handed us more options than any generation before us has ever had. That’s good news in a lot of ways, but more options mean more comparing, and more comparing means less satisfaction with whoever you choose.

Researchers who studied this question built a scale to measure where people land between maximizer and satisficer. Maximizers turned out less happy and more prone to regret. Satisficers don’t have low standards, just a standard of good enough for me instead of the best that exists. That’s very compatible with my coaching philosophy, backed up by a Nobel Prize.

Dating platforms have opened the dating landscape to people who would never have met otherwise, but online dating is also an endless buffet that makes it hard to ever feel done. What ends the buffet is structure. A real framework for evaluating a match across your first three dates, instead of an algorithm, chemistry alone or your own anxiety making the call, is the difference between endless swiping and an actual relationship.

What Older Adults Already Know About Love

Older adults have a real edge here. Life experience teaches you what actually matters in a partner and what’s just noise, because you’ve already lived through a marriage, a divorce, or a few serious relationships that taught you the hard way. Single women over 60 are dating with far more self-knowledge than they had the first time around. Younger daters swipe just as compulsively, but you have something they don’t: hard-won experience that lets you 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.

• 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 H overall that’s below an 8 out of 10 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 before date three is 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 hoo-ha instincts more than any other H, usually because they were taught attraction is shallow. It’s not: it’s what differentiates a love relationship from a friendship. It doesn’t have to be there on date one, but the potential does need to be detectable.

Your New Script for Ending the Search

Here’s the self-assessment for the next time you catch yourself maximizing: is this person good enough on Head, Heart, and Hoo-ha? If so, stay 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, the muscle you build every time you stick to the 3H method and the 3-date rule instead of letting the apps run the show. It’s the same framework I walk through in more depth in my free webinar, 3 Secrets to Finding and Maintaining Healthy Love. Good enough, chosen on purpose, beats perfect every time.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you always look for the perfect option in everything? When it comes to dating, do you wait until the “perfect” candidate shows up? What would it mean to you to choose a “good enough” partner instead of a “perfect” one?