Micromarriages

Last updated: Wed Jan 15 2025

By popular demand: micromarriages.

In risk analysis, a one-in-a-million chance of death is called a micromort. A skydiving jump, for instance, gives you 8 micromorts; you have about an 8-in-a-million chance of dying each time. The more jumps you do, the more micromorts you accrue. If you’re going to be skydiving every week, then maybe you shouldn’t also scale Everest, which is apparently 37,932 micromorts per ascent.

Micromarriages¹ are the same concept, applied to dating. Any given event gives you some chance in a million of meeting a life partner. So, if you’re looking for a life partner, you should optimize for micromarriages. Maybe swiping on a dating app gets you one micromarriage per swipe. Maybe going to a party where you don’t know anyone except the host gets you a few dozens micromarriages. Actually going on a date has to be at least few hundred micromarriages.

This has a few corollaries in practice:

• You can intentionally increase your exposure to micromarriages. You should go to that party where you don’t know anyone except the host, even if you don’t really feel like it. You should try a new hobby where you’ll meet new people, like improv² or a run club. You should cultivate relationships with at least a few socialites that will invite you to large events.
• As an extension to the original concept, we can consider type-weighted micromarriages. Many people claim to have a “type,” but different types of people are more or less likely to be present at certain types of event. Hence, you can consider not just micromarriages per event, but micromarriages per event weighted by your type. If you want a socialite, you should probably be going to lots of open-invite parties. If you want a writer, you should be going to writing meetups. If you want a rave bae, you should probably be going to lots of raves.
• Most people overrate the number of micromarriages from dating apps and underrate the number of micromarriages from in-person events. People you meet in person already share some context — they’re at the same event, after all. Starting a conversation in person pre-filters for whether you get along. This doesn’t have to involve matchmaking by your friends; simply going to more things in person will increase your micromarriages.

For reference, I met my wife when a mutual friend wanted to build an iOS app, so that iOS app certainly earned me a few thousand micromarriages.