DII: Chapter 10 — What a Better System Looks Like
Clarification: Feasibility, Not Proposal
This chapter does not advocate adoption, participation, or implementation.
It is a feasibility analysis: a demonstration of what structural conditions would have to be true for coordination to stabilize under anomie. It does not recommend that any reader build, join, demand, or enforce such a system.
Descriptions of alternative structures are explanatory, not invitational. They exist to clarify why existing systems fail—not to supply readers with a blueprint for personal action.
This chapter does not argue for better people, better communication, or better intentions.
It argues for better structure.
If modern dating fails because signals are cheap, goals are implicit, and closure is optional, then any viable alternative must reverse those conditions directly. Not rhetorically. Not morally. Procedurally.
What follows is a clean counter‑system. It is intentionally narrow. It does not try to optimize happiness, chemistry, or romance. It optimizes coordination.
The foundational requirement of any workable dating system is that time must bind.
In functional systems, time passing changes state. Silence closes doors. Delay has consequence. Waiting is not neutral.
Modern dating removed this binding. Time passes without effect. Interactions remain indefinitely open. Participants are required to remain interpretively vigilant because nothing ever resolves on its own.
A better system rebinds time by enforcing deadlines and expirations:
- Proposals expire.
- Silence transitions state.
- Open loops close automatically.
This does not punish delay. It makes delay legible.
When time binds, participants no longer need to guess what silence means. The system answers for them.
The second requirement is categorical clarity.
Signals may exist. Returns must decide.
A return is any action that incurs cost and changes future possibility:
- proposing a concrete plan
- confirming
- showing up
- refusing clearly
- exiting cleanly
Signals—warmth, expression, reassurance—are permitted but inert. They do not advance state.
This single rule eliminates extraction.
Once signals cannot move interaction forward, they stop functioning as substitutes for action. Speech becomes cheap again. Warmth regains honesty because it no longer carries hidden obligation.
Every interaction requires initiative. Someone must move first.
In the current system, initiative is unpaid. Those who lead absorb risk and effort without guaranteed return. Those who follow preserve optionality. Over time, leadership disappears.
A better system compensates leadership structurally:
- initiative cannot be demanded twice without return
- responsibility rotates or terminates
- unanswered proposals resolve automatically
Leadership becomes sustainable not because people are braver, but because the system no longer consumes it without reimbursement.
Closure is not cruelty. It is maintenance.
A system that cannot close interactions accumulates congestion. Attention fragments. Trust erodes.
A better system treats closure as default rather than exception:
- every interaction ends unless renewed
- refusal is cheap and explicit
- disappearance is replaced by timed exit
This does not force endings. It prevents endless middles.
Health in coordination systems is not measured by volume. It is measured by settlement.
A better dating system deliberately limits scale:
- fewer matches
- fewer simultaneous interactions
- higher entry cost
- clearer expectations
This is not exclusionary. It is informational.
When liquidity is restricted, signals regain meaning. Priority becomes visible. Attention becomes valuable again.
Nothing in this counter‑system compels intimacy.
Exit is always permitted. Non‑commitment is allowed. Desire may change.
What is prohibited is extraction: continuing to receive coordination, attention, or emotional labor without paying the costs that make coordination possible.
Participation is voluntary. Rules bind only those who opt in.
This is not control. It is consent made legible over time.
When these conditions are met:
- clarity becomes cheap
- sincerity becomes sufficient
- leadership reappears
- exhaustion declines
- trust becomes rational
Not because people improved—but because the system stopped mispricing behavior.
Any dating system can be evaluated with one question:
Does time passing without action change anything?
If the answer is no, the system will drift.
If the answer is yes, coordination becomes possible again.
That is the entire claim.
Not that people must behave differently.
But that systems must once again make behavior mean something.