The other day I thought the perfect analogy to explain to someone why searching for a lifetime partner past 26 is not a good idea.

Everyone starts the journey past puberty, around 16 years old people start considering serious relationships and some couples that meet at that age will actually marry later. In this age you have a bag full of chips to chose from, you get to pick the crunchiest, the biggest, the saltiest, whatever you want, unluckily you don't really know what you want yet because you haven't tried enough.

By the time you're in college you will find that some people already had a breakup, some are still virgins and the rest is on relationships. The first filter has been applied at this point, many traditional people, religious people that encourage monogamy and truly faithful partners are already on relationships. The ones that are not are divided between people that were broken once and virgins. The best chips (faithful trustworthy people) are already being either broken or eaten. If a chip gets broken too many times, it will be easier for it to go to the bottom of the bag (reduce sexual value).

At around 22 years old you probably all the chips in the bag have been bitten (been in short/long relationships). If you see something too good to be true, there's probably a very good reason behind it (it's not really very good). Some of the broken chips are still edible, but they're not at their best. You have to start moving your hand around in order to find a good chip in the bag among all the smaller broken bits around the bottom.

At 26 years old you're scrapping at the bottom of the bag. From now on, the bag stays pretty much the same, no one wants to eat the salty, oily, small bits that stick to your fingers whenever you try to find something edible. Once in a while someone will find a relatively good sized chip and people will start divorcing as well, adding some bigger broken bits to the bag. At this point you want to consider if you want to get your hand all oily and nasty just to eat some broken bits.

At 30 you should just throw the bag away. There is hope, yes, you can also hope to win the lottery, both are totally possible yet totally unlikely.

The paradox is that when you're at the best moment to chose, you don't have enough experience and you don't want to listen to your parents or other people. The more experience you get, the higher the risk to actually lose your chance to find a good chip.