Cupid's bow fires furiously in our disenchanted world

I'LL say it at the outset. While growing old has its drawbacks, mostly in the currency of aches and pains - that unwelcome accounting of the body's inventory - one advantage I feel over today's young people is not having to engage in the mating game.

A short few years ago, the new meme was "hooking-up", which turned out to be the same old wine of casual sex in new verbal bottles.

Casual sex has probably been around since the invention of fire, certainly since the invention of wine. It may have begun with Adam and Eve.

In my haste, I probably missed out on my invitation to their wedding.

Of course that original pairing went on to have both consequence and unexpected responsibility - just as some modern hook-ups do.

Then came speed dating, in which people sought to find a partner through eight minutes of conversation in a form of emotional musical chairs.

The idea seemed to be to avoid the heavier disappointment of a less than favourable outcome of a full evening's investment.

That last word is a clue here, in that more and more the demands of a busy work life become primary and the search for a mate takes on a lesser priority. Like many functions of a commodified mercantile world, the material girl or guy (bloke) looks to their possible partner as a potential asset, to occupy a credit side of the balance sheet.

Like any investment analysis, due diligence needs to be done swiftly and with minimal emotional distraction.

In the service of minimising the uncertainty of encounter and maximising speed, young eligibles have taken to newer approaches. One is through their new appendage, smart phones, where dating apps have been installed, led by Tinder.

By virtue of a Facebook account, the Tinder user can upload pictures and personal data, then find like-minded folks and scroll through their photos and data.

Then it's swipe right for a move to open a text conversation or swipe left to say "no thanks". It's easy. Users praise Tinder or its confreres, Hinge or Clover, for efficiency, the ability to do your swiping while multi-tasking, even on a date, say. The upshot seems to be less casual sex and more casual texting.

And there's the search for love. In some prior times, love was almost an afterthought to mating, especially when marriages were arranged. Modern times bring freedom's choices; a mixed blessing for many millenials. Behavioral science has stepped in where Cupid fears to tread.

Mandy Catron's article in the New York Times (February 13), entitled "To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This" cites a study by psychologist Arthur Arons et al to test whether intimacy could be accelerated. Pairs of eligible volunteers, strangers to each other, were tasked to ask each other a specific series of personal questions. The 36 questions in the study were broken up into three sets, with each set intended to be more probing than the previous one. The idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness.

Afterwards, the pair were to look in each other's eyes for four minutes. A surprising number of volunteers subsequently married. The 36 questions can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html.

Looking at the modern mating pace takes my breath away. It's making busy and business out of something that needs to be unhurried. It strains all the mystery out of encounter. And the seduction out of sex.

Maybe it's my age showing, but I know it's easy to fall in love. The hard part comes from staying there. That takes first an alignment of character, a joint commitment to creating the happiness possible out of the quotidian life we have.

And unravelling slowly the continuing mystery that is another human being. Of course, luck enters into it. Speaking very personally, you have to be lucky in choosing that being in the first place. And fortunately, as Pasteur would say, there too, "chance favours the prepared mind".