7 ms·

Why ‘playing hard to get’ may actually work

33 points by hhs 6y ago

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
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.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  If you have a high enough perceived value then it would also work to do nothing...
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Doing nothing is basically playing hard to get since you're ignoring the other party.
- wegs 6y ago
  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?
  - bananamerica 6y ago
    In my view a good relationship dynamics can be compared to a sinusoidal function —- the partners are constantly switching positions.
    - sk0g 6y ago
      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.
      - bananamerica 6y ago
        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.
        sk0g 6y ago
        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.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    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.
- twic 6y ago
  If you play hard to get, aren't you selecting for the most desperate suitors? And therefore the ones of the lowest "value" themselves?
  - jcbrand 6y ago
    You could use "determined" instead of "desperate" and then suddenly it sounds like a value proposition again.
    - scotty79 6y ago
      I'm not sure. Determination is not automatically positive quality.
      - m4r35n357 6y ago
        . . . and probably cannot be sustained indefinitely.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    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.
  - BariumBlue 6y ago
    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
    - twic 6y ago
      This is somewhere in the vicinity of the secretary problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
troughway 6y ago
Texts like The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley are eye openers in this genre.
metalliqaz 6y ago
That headline makes me laugh. "may" work? Obviously it works, that's why women have been playing that game since the dawn of civilization.
- klyrs 6y ago
  It works for men, too. The less you put yourself out there, the less rejection you'll experience. Consequentially, you'll have a higher self-perception which will translate to a higher external perception. When opportunity comes knocking, be cool, don't trip yourself up. Slowly spiraling towards a relationship delays gratification which can intensify satisfaction, and also provides an opportunity for sober reflection -- you can adequately respond to warning signs and pull away without drama. Also bears noting that the strategy "may" result in missed opportunities -- and that's the purpose of that word in the title.
- chooseaname 6y ago
  When a lady cardinal is being wooed by a couple of bright red guy cardinals and she eventually chooses one, we call that nature. When humans do this, we get our feathers ruffled. Strange.
  - metalliqaz 6y ago
    What are you talking about? My feathers aren't ruffled. I consider them both nature. I think it says a lot about HN culture that the mere mention of 'women' makes people automatically assume I must be some kind of misogynistic basement-dweller. These days it's "the pickup game", before that it was "dating", before that it was "courting", and on and on back through the ages. Sure, men can play hard to get, but everyone knows that males tend to pursue females. It's not controversial. It's just the way we're wired, likely due to our biology and the consequences of reproduction for each sex.
  - logicprog 6y ago
    Because humans have a choice in it. Women can choose not to do it, the female cardinal can't, it's just an indelible part of their mating ritual and instincts. Ought implies can - there's no reason to be angry at someone for something if they can't help it. In addition, female cardinals do that ritual because it's a way of filtering for mates without conscious/rational assessment and communication... something which human women are entirely capable of, so they don't need wacky evolutionary tricks to do it. But also, the GP doesn't seem to have his feathers ruffled anyway, so it looks like you're just searching for some offense here.
dvh 6y ago
If you want to hear what everybody knows, ask behavioral psychologist.
jpeg_hero 6y ago
> “Playing hard to get makes it seem as if you are more in demand—we call that having higher mate value,” says Harry Reis, a professor of psychology and Dean’s Professor in Arts, Sciences & Engineering at Rochester. >“People who are too easy to attract may be perceived as more desperate,” says coauthor Gurit Birnbaum, a social psychologist and associate professor of psychology at the IDC Herzliya. Thank god for theses scientists undertaking this examination of this curious ritual called “human love”
deleted 6y ago
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guildwriter 6y ago
Based on what I've seen in online dating in my own experiences and the experiences of others, this is not an effective strategy. In fact I'd say it's a counterproductive strategy. Timing and options are large contributing factors to this. The largest problem with online dating is that there are no natural filters in place. Dating in meatspace means that oftentimes you mean people in contexts that help pre-screen them and give you an idea what you are dealing with (mutual friends, work, gym, hobby, etc.) Online dating strips that away and forces you to have to evaluate each person in person in order to have any clue if things may actually work out in a relationship. In this case, the important thing is to drive things to the first date and then take it from there. (Technically I guess this is easier if all you're looking for is sex) With a large pool of options it means that the entire game of "waiting for a couple of days to signal non-desperation" is a counter productive strategy. People constantly have potential people to meet. If you take too long to respond, it will signal disinterest or that you are ghosting them, and they will simply move on. Note that none of this means "always make yourself available at all times". That will reek of desperation.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rdiddly 6y ago
Get shot down cuz you're over-zealous / Play hard-to-get, females get jealous -Young MC, 1988 or so In all seriousness, if this is a strategy to make yourself look better than you are, shouldn't prospective partners ask why you need to do that? Doesn't your playing hard-to-get imply that you're the desperate one, on some level? Or rather it's the "I drive a Dodge Stratus" of dating. It separates/differentiates you from the lowest tier, but I think those who are truly in the top tier will probably use some kind of counter-signaling approach. Welcome to the wonderful world of over-thinking it and trying to game the system.
- Traubenfuchs 6y ago
  There is a difference between "playing hard to get" and "BEING hard to get"...
Traubenfuchs 6y ago
As I shredded off the last bits of my "childhood" / "youth" / "young person vibes" in the last years I realized that dating is just as horrible as the rest of life. Everyone just runs around with a fuzzy version of the dating calculator* in their head. Is that person good enough? What's my chance to find someone better? Is it worth sacrificing the energy I spent on my current partner for the chance of finding a better one? I see "settled" and unhappy people all around. Those who have "reproduce" as next point on their bullet list for life. In gay dating it's even worse, because there are usually no wombs with their "best before" date involved and social pressure to settle is lower. * https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/dating-theory https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/dating-theory
- loopz 6y ago
  Maybe try meeting someone who is not "everyone", and also make sure you don't fall into the same trap yourself? If you meet a person you settle down with, it doesn't stop attraction to other people, but you have a choice to limit that expression to managable levels, or live with the hell of not doing that.
rowawey 6y ago
It doesn't just apply to dating. Jobs, friends/parties, and more. I played semi-passively HTG and Google had an HR person who invited me to design my own role in any department ranging under the umbrellas of SRE, SRE (lead), to SRM. Another consideration, be it any realm, is: do you really want or need whatever/whoever it is? You probably don't, so have fun and give fewer f's. There is nothing lost by inquiring and demonstrating socially-/self-aware persistence. Be like Peter, post-hypnosis. ;-)

33 points by hhs 6y ago

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.

whatshisface 6y ago
If you have a high enough perceived value then it would also work to do nothing...
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Doing nothing is basically playing hard to get since you're ignoring the other party.
wegs 6y ago
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?
- bananamerica 6y ago
  In my view a good relationship dynamics can be compared to a sinusoidal function —- the partners are constantly switching positions.
  - sk0g 6y ago
    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.
    - bananamerica 6y ago
      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.
      - sk0g 6y ago
        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.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  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.
twic 6y ago
If you play hard to get, aren't you selecting for the most desperate suitors? And therefore the ones of the lowest "value" themselves?
- jcbrand 6y ago
  You could use "determined" instead of "desperate" and then suddenly it sounds like a value proposition again.
  - scotty79 6y ago
    I'm not sure. Determination is not automatically positive quality.
    - m4r35n357 6y ago
      . . . and probably cannot be sustained indefinitely.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  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.
- BariumBlue 6y ago
  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
  - twic 6y ago
    This is somewhere in the vicinity of the secretary problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

troughway 6y ago

Texts like The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley are eye openers in this genre.

metalliqaz 6y ago

That headline makes me laugh. "may" work? Obviously it works, that's why women have been playing that game since the dawn of civilization.

klyrs 6y ago
It works for men, too. The less you put yourself out there, the less rejection you'll experience. Consequentially, you'll have a higher self-perception which will translate to a higher external perception. When opportunity comes knocking, be cool, don't trip yourself up. Slowly spiraling towards a relationship delays gratification which can intensify satisfaction, and also provides an opportunity for sober reflection -- you can adequately respond to warning signs and pull away without drama. Also bears noting that the strategy "may" result in missed opportunities -- and that's the purpose of that word in the title.
chooseaname 6y ago
When a lady cardinal is being wooed by a couple of bright red guy cardinals and she eventually chooses one, we call that nature. When humans do this, we get our feathers ruffled. Strange.
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  What are you talking about? My feathers aren't ruffled. I consider them both nature. I think it says a lot about HN culture that the mere mention of 'women' makes people automatically assume I must be some kind of misogynistic basement-dweller. These days it's "the pickup game", before that it was "dating", before that it was "courting", and on and on back through the ages. Sure, men can play hard to get, but everyone knows that males tend to pursue females. It's not controversial. It's just the way we're wired, likely due to our biology and the consequences of reproduction for each sex.
- logicprog 6y ago
  Because humans have a choice in it. Women can choose not to do it, the female cardinal can't, it's just an indelible part of their mating ritual and instincts. Ought implies can - there's no reason to be angry at someone for something if they can't help it. In addition, female cardinals do that ritual because it's a way of filtering for mates without conscious/rational assessment and communication... something which human women are entirely capable of, so they don't need wacky evolutionary tricks to do it. But also, the GP doesn't seem to have his feathers ruffled anyway, so it looks like you're just searching for some offense here.

dvh 6y ago

If you want to hear what everybody knows, ask behavioral psychologist.

jpeg_hero 6y ago

> “Playing hard to get makes it seem as if you are more in demand—we call that having higher mate value,” says Harry Reis, a professor of psychology and Dean’s Professor in Arts, Sciences & Engineering at Rochester. >“People who are too easy to attract may be perceived as more desperate,” says coauthor Gurit Birnbaum, a social psychologist and associate professor of psychology at the IDC Herzliya. Thank god for theses scientists undertaking this examination of this curious ritual called “human love”

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

guildwriter 6y ago

Based on what I've seen in online dating in my own experiences and the experiences of others, this is not an effective strategy. In fact I'd say it's a counterproductive strategy. Timing and options are large contributing factors to this. The largest problem with online dating is that there are no natural filters in place. Dating in meatspace means that oftentimes you mean people in contexts that help pre-screen them and give you an idea what you are dealing with (mutual friends, work, gym, hobby, etc.) Online dating strips that away and forces you to have to evaluate each person in person in order to have any clue if things may actually work out in a relationship. In this case, the important thing is to drive things to the first date and then take it from there. (Technically I guess this is easier if all you're looking for is sex) With a large pool of options it means that the entire game of "waiting for a couple of days to signal non-desperation" is a counter productive strategy. People constantly have potential people to meet. If you take too long to respond, it will signal disinterest or that you are ghosting them, and they will simply move on. Note that none of this means "always make yourself available at all times". That will reek of desperation.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rdiddly 6y ago

Get shot down cuz you're over-zealous / Play hard-to-get, females get jealous -Young MC, 1988 or so In all seriousness, if this is a strategy to make yourself look better than you are, shouldn't prospective partners ask why you need to do that? Doesn't your playing hard-to-get imply that you're the desperate one, on some level? Or rather it's the "I drive a Dodge Stratus" of dating. It separates/differentiates you from the lowest tier, but I think those who are truly in the top tier will probably use some kind of counter-signaling approach. Welcome to the wonderful world of over-thinking it and trying to game the system.

Traubenfuchs 6y ago
There is a difference between "playing hard to get" and "BEING hard to get"...

Traubenfuchs 6y ago

As I shredded off the last bits of my "childhood" / "youth" / "young person vibes" in the last years I realized that dating is just as horrible as the rest of life. Everyone just runs around with a fuzzy version of the dating calculator* in their head. Is that person good enough? What's my chance to find someone better? Is it worth sacrificing the energy I spent on my current partner for the chance of finding a better one? I see "settled" and unhappy people all around. Those who have "reproduce" as next point on their bullet list for life. In gay dating it's even worse, because there are usually no wombs with their "best before" date involved and social pressure to settle is lower. * https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/dating-theory https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/dating-theory

loopz 6y ago
Maybe try meeting someone who is not "everyone", and also make sure you don't fall into the same trap yourself? If you meet a person you settle down with, it doesn't stop attraction to other people, but you have a choice to limit that expression to managable levels, or live with the hell of not doing that.

rowawey 6y ago

It doesn't just apply to dating. Jobs, friends/parties, and more. I played semi-passively HTG and Google had an HR person who invited me to design my own role in any department ranging under the umbrellas of SRE, SRE (lead), to SRM. Another consideration, be it any realm, is: do you really want or need whatever/whoever it is? You probably don't, so have fun and give fewer f's. There is nothing lost by inquiring and demonstrating socially-/self-aware persistence. Be like Peter, post-hypnosis. ;-)