The main flaw with this is that relationships aren't an ordered set. I don't even know how I'd rate my relationships in order. Either a relationship works or it doesn't. I married the first person I found where our relationship just never stopped working, even after a few years of living together.
edit: It also ignores the fact that you yourself are going to change as you date people. Some of the relationships that didn't work out for me, didn't work out because I was terrible at being in a relationship, and that doesn't factor into the equation at all. It sort of presumes you're some perfect relationship oracle.
(which isn't to say that the math isn't interesting, because it is, I just think anyone that takes the math as an actual model to use in their life is being silly).
You are assuming that the girl's age changes, but it really doesn't have to for the situation the parent describes to be true -- the skill of not being an idiot can (far) more than adequately compensate for a ~15 year age gap... But it might be different for those who didn't start out as idiots :)
Mine's even weirder, I'm bad at dating cause my dating list is rather small (only one other person) but still here we are 3 years in almost. Every case is unique, though you'll find some similarities in some.
The article addresses the unordered set problem. Did you really read the whole thing?
"There’s the risk, for example, that the first person you date really is your perfect partner... If you follow the rule, you’ll reject them anyway. And as you continue to date other people, no one will ever measure up to your first love, and you’ll end up rejecting everyone, and end up alone with your cats."
"Another -- probably more realistic -- option is that you start your life with a string of really terrible boyfriends or girlfriends that give you super low expectations about the potential suitors out there... The next person you date is marginally better than the failures you dated in your past, and you end up marrying him. But he’s still kind of a dud, and doesn't measure up to the great people you could have met in the future."
"So obviously there are ways this method can go wrong. But it still produces better results than any other formula you could follow, whether you’re considering 10 suitors or 100."
There's an assumption in the use of any formula that there's an abstract, objective reality out there that you can't change. When it comes to relationships, that's false. You contribute 50% of what goes on in a relationship; how you act very often changes the reality that you're trying to evaluate.
(FWIW, many people dislike feeling like they're always being judged and evaluated, and would find someone who tries to rank-order all their partners very unattractive. Thus adopting any formula at all disqualifies yourself from a majority of partners, and the folks who are left will be those who probably like the idea of rank-ordering partners themselves. Good if you're mathematically-inclined and looking for someone else who is too, but many people seek emotional connection in a relationship.)
edit: It also ignores the fact that you yourself are going to change as you date people. Some of the relationships that didn't work out for me, didn't work out because I was terrible at being in a relationship, and that doesn't factor into the equation at all. It sort of presumes you're some perfect relationship oracle.
(which isn't to say that the math isn't interesting, because it is, I just think anyone that takes the math as an actual model to use in their life is being silly).