OK, so I'm a computer person. I see many things in terms of or in comparison to computers. I hope you'll forgive this analogy, even though it may be a bit forced.

I wrote elsewhere that the computer is incapable of carrying out animation. There’s no such thing as computer animation. It’s impossible.

Yet, we do have a perception of animation on our computer screen. We can be fooled into thinking that objects move and that we hear sounds. This is done by using external resources in conjunction with the computer itself - and also because of our imaginative minds. The computer cannot produce these effects by itself.

Similarly, a person cannot choose a mate for life (or study brain surgery) independently. Successful dating requires external resources (such as a confidant or a shadchan).

In both cases, you can't - or shouldn't - do it by yourself. But that's where the analogy ends. Computer animation is relatively weak. It only gives the perception of sound and movement. Dating, on the other hand, may be more difficult in many ways, but it offers you the ability to actually find a real person to live with for the rest of your life.

That being the case, shouldn't you input at least the same effort to dating as the computer devotes to animation?