The Online Dating "Anti-Lemon" Problem

I can guarantee you this will be my only post on dating, ever.  I have noticed a profound problem regarding online dating: excessive and illustrative handle names.  I think this points to an emerging "anti-lemon" problem online.    

From an economics standpoint, the "lemon problem" has seemingly plagued some markets for goods.  The "lemon problem: essentially refers to information asymmetries between buyers and sellers of goods (or lovers).  For example, buyers cannot typically tell the quality of cars at second hand car dealers. At the same time, prices for the cars do not vary that much failing to give the buyer a clear "signal" of quality.  As a result, the market for second hand cars falls apart as buyers only offer below market prices (afraid they will be taken at a higher price), and people wanting to sell high-quality cars won't because they will not get the price their car is worth. 

The lemon problem seemingly has an application in dating too: although looks were pretty easy to discern, vast informational asymmetries existed in a person's background, personality, and financial status.  While not necessarily a deciding factor in the breakup of some relationships, adverse selection would certainly doom the occasional relationship. 

Enter online dating.  Online dating has exacerbated existing information asymmetries as no one really knows what person a looks like, their personality, or their real intentions online.  One of the ways to bridge these asymmetries is quite simple: increase the level and intensity of signaling.  For example, a friend of mine recently sent emails to me from women who emailed him with such handles such as "PoshGirl99" and "Gucci Whore."  While these handles might be funny and describe their true motives, it would seem we have a new problem emerging: the anti-lemon problem. People, in order to gain attention and distinguish themselves, signal their intentions so clearly that they might actually hurt their chances of finding a mate  over the long run.  Indeed, men who may have initially fallen in love with these women, and then agreed to fund their Gucci habit, now have clear evidence of front of a woman's real intentions to vitiate their pocketbooks.  A word to the wise; clearer signaling doesn't necessarily mean better results. 

Knives Out

Knives Out

I want you to know
He's not coming back
Look into my eyes
I'm not coming back

So knives out
Catch the mouse
Don't look down
Shove it in your mouth

If you'd been a dog
They would've drowned you at birth

Look into my eyes
It's the only way you'll know I'm telling the truth

- Radiohead

I Think I Am Turning Japanese: A Beautiful Breakdown of Sober Delusions

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a Cyclone Ranger
Everyone
That's why I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so

- The Vapors

But the foolish children of men do miserably delude themselves in their own
schemes, and in their confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing
but a shadow.

Jonathan Edwards- "Sinners in the Hand of An Angry God" (1741)

"But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation."

- 1 Thessalonians 5:8

This is planned to be a multi-part entery addressing the following questions: 1) What is spiritual estrangement?  How is it related to delusion?  2) How do Christians sucessfully battle delusion and its consequences?   3) How then shall we live?  

Many thoughts will go running through one's head as you lay on the floor of the bathroom,  desperately gasping for breath, while your heart continues to accelerate without pause.  Inevitably, one question will arise: How did I get here? Over the last couple of weeks, I have made several visits to the emergency room of Seoul's best and worst hospitals. While language truly fails to capture what this experience has taught me (thank you, Wittgenstein), the Vapors probably capture it the best: complete and total estrangement. 

 Estrangement, however, whether it be from God or ourselves, must ultimately be built upon something.  That is to say, estrangement requires a vehicle, a belief system, that tears us away from the truth and entices us to build our metaphysical foundation on sand.  After rereading Johnathan Edwards classic sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, I found the perfect villian: delusion.  Although Edwards' sermon is clearly aimed at converting unbelievers during a period of unparalleled revival in the United States, his penetrating analysis regarding man's natural delusionary state also applies to converted Christians.  After all, even though we have been saved through Christ's blood on Calvary, our own sinful nature still exists as does the lies of Satan.

Indeed, a quick search of the Bible will reveal many examples of delusion, however, I will only mention three.   First, Nathan's confrontation of David after he had slept with Bathsheeba and intentionally killed her husband.  Nathan speaks to David using an analogy of a rich man who took a poor man's only lamb.  Two, Peter's chronic denial that he would never betray  Jesus.  Third, and undoutedly most frightening, Jesus in Luke 13:25-27 rejects a group of "believers" who are knocking to get into heaven only to be rejected and sent to hell.  

The underpinning of these three different delusionary states is somewhat different.: David's delusion is due to disobedience caused by sin, Peter's due to a fundamental misunderstanding of his own fallen nature, and the group of believers because they never received Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  While the three may differ in origin, however, I will posit that the remedy is the same.  In Edwards' sermon, he speaks of "God's hand"( a symbol of Jesus' sacrifice) that keeps those who don't believe from falling into hell. I believe in my own case, and that of the church currently, there must be more focus on the "hand" in order to draw people's attention away from their own lives and problems. 

What a statement seems to imply to me, it doesn't to you. If you should ever live amongst foreign people for any length of time and be dependent on them, you will understand my difficulty.

Ludwig Wittgenstein