The Lemon Law

Have you watched 'How I met your mother?'

I just watched episode 7 of season 1 today and Barney brought up something very interesting: The Lemon Law.

In some US states car users have apolicy when buying a used car. If the car they bought can be proven faulty they are entitled to return it for a refund. In short, it helps reduce the buying of 'Lemons', (makes me wonder if the Lemon mp3 players i saw in sim lim square years back still exist).

Barney, suggested applying Lemon Laws for dating. According to him, in the first five minutes of a date, one should have the right to 'apply the lemon law' to the other party and just walk off if he or she feels the date won't go as one hopes. It's all about first impressions.

As ridiculous as Barney really is, that policy actually makes some sense. One might call such a 'dating system' shallow but if you look at Malcom Gladwell's, 'Blink' (2000), we form impressions of someone within the first seconds of meeting the person. The study of social cognition places  a lot of effort explaining that very phenomenon. 

I think in most cases, the Lemon Law would lead to an accurate rejection of poorly matched dates. Unfortunately, the few potentially good matches that fail to make a first impression will simply go undiscovered.