Essential Partner Criteria Filter
Keep only needs unique to partnership and meet the rest elsewhere.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 98%
Taraban treats every additional 'and' in partner selection as a probability and opportunity cost. List all the qualities, interests, and forms of support you expect from a partner. For each item, ask whether the need could be met appropriately through a friend, relative, colleague, community, or personal practice. Move transferable needs into those relationships and actively maintain them. What remains should be the small set that is genuinely specific to the intimate partnership and necessary for enthusiastic participation. Finally, apply an acceptance test: if a candidate never changed in a disputed area, could you still participate wholeheartedly? If not, select differently instead of beginning a project to reform them.
Origin
Taraban says a mentor challenged his wish for a partner who shared every intellectual and lifestyle interest, prompting him to meet many of those needs in other relationships. Extracted from The Diary of a CEO.
Core principles
- 01Every added criterion reduces the pool of possible partners.
- 02One partner need not satisfy every intellectual and social need.
- 03Nonsexual relationships can meet many important needs.
- 04Acceptance is easier when essential incompatibilities are screened early.
How to run it
- 1
List every expectation
Write the traits, interests, support, lifestyle, attraction, and intimacy you currently expect from a partner. Include the criteria you rarely say aloud.
Pro tip Write each criterion as a separate line so the accumulation is visible.
Watch out Do not omit safety, respect, or other genuine essentials to widen the pool.
- 2
Price every and
Treat each additional criterion as reducing the number of compatible candidates. Decide whether the benefit justifies that narrower pool.
Pro tip Distinguish a requirement from a preference and a fantasy.
Watch out Probability is not a reason to accept fundamental incompatibility.
- 3
Find alternative providers
Ask whether each need can be met in another healthy relationship or activity. Intellectual discussion, hobbies, career support, and spiritual practice often have multiple possible homes.
Pro tip Name the actual person or community rather than an abstract alternative.
Watch out Do not outsource commitments that properly belong inside the agreed partnership.
- 4
Strengthen the wider network
Invest in the friendships, family ties, groups, and practices that will carry the transferable needs. This prevents the filter from merely deleting needs on paper.
Pro tip Create recurring contact around the relevant interest.
Watch out A partner should not become isolated from your wider support network.
- 5
Keep the essentials
Retain the small set of criteria that are genuinely necessary and specific to the intimate relationship. Use them consistently during selection.
Pro tip Explain why each remaining criterion matters to the relationship's functioning.
Watch out Do not pretend an essential need is optional to preserve a poor match.
- 6
Run the acceptance test
Ask whether you could enthusiastically remain if the person never changed the trait in question. If the honest answer is no, treat it as selection information.
Pro tip Apply the test before commitment makes honesty harder.
Watch out Acceptance does not require tolerating harm.
In the wild
Taraban wanted a partner who could discuss quantum mechanics, literature, wilderness travel, mindfulness, and spirituality while also meeting his attraction criteria. A mentor asked why quantum mechanics had to come from a female partner. Taraban concluded that many interests could be shared with other people and committed to meeting those needs elsewhere.
→ His partner pool widened while nonsexual relationships received more deliberate investment.
Common mistakes
Deleting needs without meeting them
The framework requires cultivating other relationships, not simply pretending the needs disappeared.
Confusing acceptance with tolerance
Safety, respect, and enthusiastic participation remain essential constraints.
Expecting future reform
Taraban warns against choosing someone you cannot accept and then trying to change them.
Is it for you?
Best for
People whose partner criteria combine many interests, roles, beliefs, and support needs into one improbable profile.
Not ideal for
Anyone using minimal criteria to excuse unsafe behavior, coercion, abuse, or fundamental incompatibility.
From the transcript
“every time you say and probabilistically you're less likely to get what you want”
“could I get this need met in other kind of relationship”
“if this never changed it would degrade Your Capacity to participate enthusiastically”
From the episode
The Dating Doctor: "Start Dating Like It's Your Job!", "Dating Apps Are Impacting Us More Than We Realise!"