Clubbing

I know that at this age I am supposed to genuinely enjoy excessive alcohol intake, sleep deprivation, and the like. But, I must admit, I prefer visiting historical sites over dancing at a club all night. As much as I enjoy social interaction, sitting in a loud, smoky room and paying $8 for a beer is somehow less appealing than visiting the shriveled corpse of a long-dead communist leader. If I had my druthers, I’d be to bed by nightfall most nights and up with the sunrise. Of course, that would make me completely out of tune with my peers. So, I don’t do that.
As any of my friends and family can attest to, I am not nocturnal. Come 11:00 pm I’m usually ready to be tucked in. My mind simply does not function very well when it has not had adequate rest. I begin to wander, to become semi-delusional, to have strange ideas. Last night I could not stop thinking about how human-relationships are simultaneously the best and worst example of a perfectly competitive market. On the one hand, every individual has roughly 3,500,000,000 who he or she could theoretically engage in a romantic relationship with (not accounting for homosexuals): if that’s not choice, then I don’t know what is! With the Internet, social networking, and cheap international transportation networks, more people are connected than ever before. In liberal countries at least, a divorce can be obtained easily if the consumer finds a superior relationship. Assuming the individuals took the necessary legal precautions, alimony can be avoided, so the cost of changing spouses is low. And since we’re discounting emotional ties, let’s just say that the children can be placed into any number of state programs that will assuredly provide them with a fine upbringing. It’s perfect!
But, with anything human, it’s not so rational. The market collapses because of emotion! Why do people stay with abusive spouses? Why do people tend to marry within their racial, economic, and cultural group? The answers are obvious, but not wholly rational. In spite of our unlimited options, we disobey fundamental economic logic.
Anyways, I’m awfully tired today.