> But good old society frowns upon that, and people are often still timid to say they met their spouse on a dating site. The respectable way to meet a life partner is by dumb luck, by bumping into them randomly or being introduced to them from within your little pool.

Well, yeah. This is how social networks work: similar people group together, people socialize within that group, and they match with people who they are similar to or find ideal. They don't need to search for a partner because their ideal partner is already somewhere within their social network.

People with poor social networking skills will not "bump into" potential partners because their network is poor. It's like expecting to find an investor for your startup if all you do is post to "Show HN". You might have to actually leave your forum, or computer.

And so, after eliminating all choices from one's existing in-person social network, people with bad social networking skills look for dates on the internet. This is an uncomfortable yet common-sense truth: much like marrying your cousin, there is a stigma for a reason.

There is currently no online service that can correctly predict if someone will enjoy your physical presence. You can check however many boxes you like and you will still end up being weird. This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons that there is a stigma against online dating: usually it does not work out. If online dating really worked you would only have to go on three dates before you met a perfect partner [that was also geographically and socially convenient to date]. But it turns out that online services are just another poor social network.

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Aside from that probably-going-to-get-me-downvoted-to-hell-unpopular opinion: the author presents one view of how to pick your life partner, from one way of life. Depending on where you live, your personal values, your preferences, your goals, etc your ideal partner may look quite a bit different than the author describes.

Humans change over time. Your ideal partner right now may end up being a completely different person in 10 years. You can either accept this, or accept that your life partner is simply a "current partner" and that, similar to all other kinds of partnerships, it may not last forever.

The author is also conflating life partnership with marriage. Traditional marriage is a generally horrible custom that developed around the idea that one partner didn't have as much agency as another, and that the partnership is necessary so that the oppressed individual can retain some form of protection, usually in exchange for sexual or other reciprocation, and the relationship is almost always exclusive (for the oppressed partner).

You may want a life partner, but don't want to get married. This is increasingly the norm in modern western society (whereas before it might have landed you in jail or dead). You may want more than one partner, or your partner does. Non-monogamous relationships are becoming more common and better understood by the general public.

I'm not an expert, so I can't tell anyone how to pick a life partner. All I know is that to understand what you want in someone else, first you have to know what you like and don't like, for yourself as well as in others. Then you need to be able to express that coherently and immediately, without shame, regret, or miscommunication. Knowing how to do that will help you to search for and identify a potential life partner. But remember that it may not fall within the normal accepted standards of society, and you have to accept that, or you may indeed fall into the same trap that so many others have when they rely on a universal measuring stick to find the right fit. And above all, I think that if you can't find what you're looking for in your social network, you need to expand your social network - and not just via dating sites.