In my younger years (high school and early college), I was a very discerning person, and I considered myself someone with "high standards." Dating was a rare occurrence for me, and though getting a long-term relationship was the goal I was focused on, I never dating a single girl for more than a couple months.

Toward the end of college, I had ended up swinging in the opposite direction. I "lowered my standards," asked out more women, and quite to my surprise, found myself not only having a higher success rate, but also dating more interesting women that I connected with more deeply than many of the women I dated during my more "selective" years. "Lower standards" got me higher quality women. Weird, right?

Here's another thing that I discovered: I am really bad at figuring out what "high quality woman" actually means. When I was younger, I cared a lot about video games, science fiction novels, and building computers. Because of this, I figured it would be impossible for me to have an enjoyable relationship with any girl who wasn't also into video games, science fiction novels, and technology, and basically disqualified any non-geek girl as a potential partner. I thought that this meant I had "high standards." But once I "lowered my standards" and started dating women who had different hobbies and interests from me, I found that I actually had more in common with some people than I would have expected.

There are a lot of women who, had I simply been evaluating them based on their hobbies, or what they might list on an online dating profile, I probably never would have bothered messaging. But because I decided to take a chance and date them (you know, to get to know them), I discovered that we shared values had developed an emotional connection that I never would have expected.

I'd actually say that I have higher standards now than when I was first starting out. The difference is that my standards are now based on things like personal values, rather than arbitrary trivia like what their favorite movie genre is, or whether they're really into the same kind of video games that I am. The thing is, I never would have discovered this if I hadn't broaded my horizons. The only way to figure out what really matters to you is through experience.

There's another thing I'd like to say that relates to "success rate" (which, by the way, I think is dumb and pointless, but which I'll indulge because it leads to an interesting point: practice makes perfect. Or put another way, "luck is the interception of preparation and opportunity." Asking out girls that I'm only sort of into prepares me for asking out girls that I'm seriously into in the same way that playing catch prepares me for playing baseball. Yeah, playing baseball involves more skills than just playing catch, but the more you perform an action, the more it feels comfortable and familiar.

I'm not saying that dating every girl is the same. In fact, one of the things that often appeals to me about certain women is that they tickle and surprise me in ways that I've never experienced with other women. What is true is that when you're on a date and trying to get to know someone, there are a lot of variables at play. Is this restaurant any good? Will it be too crowded on a Friday? Are there any cool stores nearby that we could check out after we finish eating? How long is it going to take to find parking? On any date there are tons of variables that are completely unrelated to the actual person you are dating, and you can reduce the amount of stress you experience during the date by minimizing the number of variables through practice and repetition. There's something nice about taking a girl to my favorite sushi restaurant and feeling as comfortable there as I would in my own living room.

So that's another way that asking out girls who I'm only "sort of" interested in can translate into being more successful with girls that I'm "seriously" interested in. But I think the more important thing is that sometimes, the girls that I'm only "sort of" interested in turn out to be really cool, really interesting people that I can really bond with in the right context, and the whole point of dating is to provide those proper contexts for emotional connection. You know, sometimes you need to stir things a little bit before chemistry happens.