What's wrong with just having fun and being with somebody who brightens up your day/smiles every time you walk in the room, rather than assessing men as potential breeding stock?
When you meet that person, you'll know straight away. Not because you'll be hopelessly in love and making little high achievers within a month, but because just thinking of them makes you feel good.
DP is, on paper or in your terms, not much of a catch. But, on the other hand, every second of the day, I know that my life is immeasurably better for his being in it, even when I'm ragecleaning the kitchen on a Saturday morning and chucking out food he's left uncovered on the countertop overnight.
A permanent relationship isn't all the exciting stuff, buying the fancy things or looking good in wedding photos on your parents' sideboard, it's whether they'll cook and change recipes to suit what you like, do the washing, get you a glass of water, two paracetamol and massage your neck because you've got a headache, whether you can put your hand out without looking in the certainty that theirs will be reaching out for yours when you're scared and, when your heart is breaking, you can lean into them and they will wrap their arms around you in silence for as long as it takes. But you have to feel exactly the same about them, feeling that little shiver everytime they glance over at you and smile, being able to just give them 'that look' and you both know exactly what it is, whether it's a joke, a 'don't you dare', a 'please help' or a 'yep, we were right'.
It's difficult to explain. But it's easy to feel once you've felt it - and it doesn't seem like you have with either of these men.