The Devil's Encyclopedia: S
Settling
Settling is a common phenomenom in dating, sex, and marriage, most prevalent in the cultures of the United States and similar nations. This usually occurs most frequently in a person's late twenties or possibly early thirties if it happens to the person at all, but there is no limit to the number of times it can occur for a person. The process of settling involves three steps: the need, the security, and the rationalization, and only applies in cases of exclusivity, although the exclusivity only has to be on the part of the settler and does not have to be formally exclusive. In other words, it still applies if other partners are not forbidden to the settler but the exclusivity is self-imposed or otherwise "understood" like the answer to a woman asking if she looks fat.
The steps are detailed as followed. The need is when the settler feels the need to have a regular partner, not necessarily desire for an exclusive one at this stage. The need stage is usually one that stems from social pressure, in which the settler sees or hears about others having partners at the moment, and feels left out or that feels that there is something wrong with them if they do not have someone as well. Also, pressure from parents can provide a high state of the need in one section of the population known as sissies. The security stage is one at which the person either has grown weary of the dating process and wishes to just end it where it is, or feels that he or she probably will not do better or could only do better with a degree of effort he or she is not willing to exert. The important element is that in the security step, any faults with the partner are viewed as less of a problem than having to face the need again. The rationalization involves attempting to conceal the settling process to oneself, and using ambiguous codewords such as "love" in an attempt to maintain emotional well-being.
The exclusivity us a necessary step, as non-exclusivity always leaves the possibility open for a replacement. Marriage is not a necessary step in settling, although it is a common one, and also a large factor in the need step. The movie Wedding Crashers pokes fun at the element of social pressure for others in the event of upcoming marriage, by having its main characters continually exploiting the desperation of the need stage caused in women by weddings to have one night stands with the bridesmaids. The existence of a decision of "good enough" does not necessarily imply settling, as thresholds can exist in systems unrelated to settling. If one has preemptively decided to take the first person who comes along above a threshold, then settling has not occurred when the person is taken. As there was never a choice of a person by the would-be settler, just a choice of standards, and the choice of the would-be settler's partner was made by the partner by appearing. Settling still has occurred if a person initially had been placing emphasis on the choice of partner but switched to taking the first person above a threshold due to a lack of interest in potential partners, because it does not represent an apathy to the choice but rather the same choice with many fewer options. Recent studies show that the segment of the population with the highest instances of settling consists of the partners of the people run Internet site Conservapedia.