That'll be the day when we get accurate measurements from things where pride and ego is on the line and the sunk cost is glacial.<p>"I spent a chunk of my life trying to be successful in an overdone, woefully lopsided, race-to-the-bottom social creation. I wasn't even mildly successful in the attempt. Nobody acknowledges my effort/sincerity/investment, in fact I learned it's exchangeable for nothing. Trying to follow the dream, I compromised my dignity and integrity in bid to succeed. I feel I failed at a fundamental goal 'everyone' is expected to do to 'make it'" (fear of missing out)<p>"Jim spent years of his attending college, moving and settling in an apartment hours away from home. While he attended courses for 3 years, he didn't complete enough credits to finish the degree. He's still paying off his loans. When job searching, it took weeks to even get a lukewarm response for his resume. In desperation, Jim drastically lowered his standards, not telling anyone, redoing his resume to adapt to different positions even when they offered little long term growth, in hopes of getting any feedback. On some resumes, he even lied about his qualifications. One time Jim even drove 5 hours to meetup for coffee that turned out to be a MLM recruiter" (failure at career)<p>"Jacob burned thousands of hours on dating apps. Most thwarted his bid for physical proximity, let alone emotional support, security, and reliability expected in a partner. He was routinely spurned by individuals he thought unremarkable, which he'd never consider or even notice in real life. Trying to make himself more appealing, he lied about his height and income. On some occasions, Jacob spent months chatting with a connection, investing enormous amounts of time in hopes of meeting them, only for them to ghost him. On the rare occasion he finally met someone in person, they looked much different than their pic. One time, a date revealed being courted by many others over years and still using the app actively." (failure at love)<p>Work and love is a life and death thing. The day people candidly report they sunk time/effort and they were hurt/humiliated attempting to conform to "normal" social escapades, pigs will fly.<p>That said, I know many people who were successful at online dating, and of course college (with varying extents of completion). Of those, I think their positive outcome is in spite of the avenue/venue picked. They were uniformly great communicators/empaths/confident and very motivated.