The problem with dating is not only that you are going out with somebody you do not know.
It is double: you do not know him, and he does not know himself.
The creature sitting opposite you in the pub does not yet know a great many things about himself.
What sort of father he will be. How he makes important decisions and stands behind them. Whether he will get up again after a financial collapse. What he does to look for meaning in the middle of life. How he manages an intimate routine despite boredom.
He has showered and put on deodorant, but he does not yet know what sort of person he is going to be.
And so that you do not fall into the trap of feeling superior about it — the same is true of you.
We are changing, growing creatures. It requires patience.
But I want to draw out the practical consequence, because it is not merely a consolation.
If a substantial part of who somebody will be has not yet been determined, then assessment is the wrong activity. You are not examining a finished object with hidden features to be uncovered. You are looking at a person mid-construction, and a good deal of what they become will be affected by what happens between the two of you.
Which changes the question. Not is he the right person — that question has no answer available yet, and pretending otherwise is what makes dating so exhausting.
The question that can be answered is: do the two of us seem to make each other better or worse? You can observe that in a month. You can observe it in an evening, actually.
And it is the only thing at that stage that is genuinely informative.