Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

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May work?!

It definitely does, no questions about that, but only as long has you have a high enough perceived value from the other party. A hobo playing hard to get won't win anything from it. You have to display some sort of value, be it real or faked.

To put it simple, if you chase something (job, love interest, etc.) it means you really need that something, if you need it, it means you have no other options, if you have no other options it makes you desperate and being desperate signals low value. If nobody else wants you, why should I?

Think of it like ivy league or a night club. Everyone wants to get into the ones that are the most difficult to get into whereas almost nobody wants to go to the ones anyone can just walk into. That's why girls will flake on you if you're always too available for dates while they're trying to go out with that guy who keeps ignoring their texts.

It's basic human evolution from our tribal days to desire what's scarce and discard what's not.

If you play hard to get, aren't you selecting for the most desperate suitors? And therefore the ones of the lowest "value" themselves?

You could use "determined" instead of "desperate" and then suddenly it sounds like a value proposition again.

I'm not sure. Determination is not automatically positive quality.

. . . and probably cannot be sustained indefinitely.

If you assume there are plenty of suitors, then playing hard to get would advertise yourself to the folks on the higher end of the desirability curve, possibly giving you more selection there, and having reasonable fallbacks otherwise.

If there aren't a lot of suitors, then you'd probably want to go for the best you can get, because there's probably not much better, but almost certainly worse.

I wonder if there's a good way to formally analyze this

This is somewhere in the vicinity of the secretary problem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

Nobody is forcing you to select from your desperate suitors. Having many suitors means you have options and are free to casually pursue your own interests and the queue of suitors is there to validate your high status in the eyes of the interest you are pursuing.

That depends entirely on how hard you play and when you allow yourself to get got. The article points this out. You've got to make the other person think you're just out of reach but maybe if they stretch . . .

It's basically flirting but longer?

It does. The bigger question is whether it's a good idea.

Dating up means the other party has more desirable alternatives. Dating down means they don't. That translates into different relationship dynamics.

Are you constantly trying to win them over, are they constantly trying to win you over, or is it equal?

I got married ~3 years ago after several years of dating around. This book really helped me understand the psychology of finding a partner and getting married

Love Factually - Duana Welch, PhD

It talks a lot about playing hard to get. The book basically frames it in the same “more in demand” that this linked article talks about.

And also adds something I’ve always remembered.

We see hard-to-get as attractive because we know, for others, they will be impossible-to-get once they’re our partner.

(I’m paraphrasing)

So hard to get only works as long as we perceive they’re hard to get for others also.

Anyways, that book was definitely a life changer for me so if you’re interested in this kind of stuff or trying to understand the confusing world of finding a partner I highly recommend it.

If there is a general societal expectation of playing hard to get (imo one half of flirting), failure to do so will generally result in “dating down”.

Flirting is push/pull and it is fun for everyone because it amplifies the novelty of a new connection. People who don’t know how to flirt likely end up dating people who they were able to spark a connection with despite lacking that skill.

In my view a good relationship dynamics can be compared to a sinusoidal function —- the partners are constantly switching positions.

That is true for either definition of position ;)

I subscribe to the theory from How I Met Your Mother - there's always a settler and a reacher in a relationship. It's just unavoidable, though over time the two might swap, for whatever reason.

When I was young my cousin told me he envied me because I was smarter (in his view) and spent my days inside the house reading books. I, on the other hand, envied his good looks, charisma, popularity and athleticism. I never had a romantic relationship with my cousin (:P), but I like to think they work similarly. It’s not that one must be in a superior position, but each partner must recognize some value in the other that they do not possess themselves.

Not that it's something I'm proud of, but when I had worse mental health, I hung on to a few partners just for the sake of being less lonely, and to make up for the lack of support network through family, etc.

Relationships are interesting in that sense - I've seen more relationships where the two balance each other out, instead of being particularly similar (interests, personal traits, etc). I mean, it makes sense! If I'm after company, I'd want someone who makes me do things I wouldn't normally. Easier to maintain a balance between together and alone time this way too, if you have a not-too-big overlap in interests.

Long term committed relationships are a compromise from at least one party. At least one has settled. As cynically as that sounds it's the truth whether most people would like to admit it or not.

That's rather reductionist. People (can) have warped senses of self-worth which mean both sides are dating/marrying "up" simultaneously, or "down" simultaneously (i.e. between narcissists).

There are also plenty of couples who value things like family/culture over individual worth and thus mating carries much more weight than the sum of parts.

Reminds me of the story about two sisters arguing over an orange.

"Management guru, Mary Parker Follett, tells the story of two highly competitive sisters quarrelling over a single orange that they both wanted. Neither of them would budge until their mother intervened and decided that the only way to resolve the dispute was to cut the orange straight down the middle and give each sister one half each. The first sister then squeezed her orange half to make a drink of fresh orange juice while the second sister grated her orange half for peel to add to orange scones. As a result, the sisters only got half of what they wanted." [0]

The sisters valued different parts of the orange. They'd both think they'd gotten the best deal (dating/marrying up) if they had shared it.

[0] http://www.managetrainlearn.com/page/win-win-deals

It doesn't have to be like that, because people aren't one-dimensional. I may be better along axis A (money, say, or intelligence). My spouse/long term partner may be better on axis B (looks, say, or relational ability).

And, since I'm weaker on axis B, I may view my partner as above me. And, since my partner is weaker on axis A, they may view me as above them. And we may both think that we married better than we deserved.

If you have a high enough perceived value then it would also work to do nothing...

Doing nothing is basically playing hard to get since you're ignoring the other party.

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