Yesterday, we had a heated gchat debate with one of our (male) readers, who posed a very thoughtful question. He asked us, if we could change one that would improve male-female relationships/dating and people’s overall happiness, what would it be?
Our short answer was: level the playing field.
In our experience, the average man is a lot better at playing hard to get than the average woman. You exchange numbers with a guy on your kickball team and he sporadically returns your texts. You go on one date with a guy and it takes him a week to get back to you.
Women, on the other hand, are often eager to shower their love interests with attention. They text the guy they met at Local 16 last weekend at noon to say how his day’s going, because they wish he would do the same for them.
Men, on the other hand, seem to realize that, if you want a girl to pay attention to you, your best bet is to ignore her.
The more a guy ignores you and the more that you question whether or not he likes you, the more you tend to convince yourself that he’s the one for you. The more time and energy you put into pursuing and/or fantasizing about someone, the more your brain (which has a tendency to assume that we really desire things we put a lot of effort into) thinks, “I must be in love with this person.”
The harder we work for something, the bigger the payoff. So when you finally snag the guy you’ve been pining after for months, it feels great.
If both sides could play hard to get and take it slow, the buildup would convince each side that he/she was in love with the other. And when they finally got together, overall happiness/satisfaction would increase because they’d finally be getting something they wanted for so long.
Of course, passion and desire aren’t going to make a relationship last. Compatibility, which we basically boil down to shared values and common interests, goes a lot further than a fluttering stomach. But it’s harder to evaluate compatibility when you’re drunk on lust.
In the end, we’re not sure what we’d change. Perhaps it’s better to learn how to work the current system so that it all works out in your favor.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
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I think it is changing. I have noticed more and more lately that guys I have gone on dates with are actively pursuing me via gchat, facebook, and texting. The internet makes "dating" way too easy for them. Instead of asking me out on another date to get to know me better these guys are contacting me all day long while they are bored at work, to the point where it gets pretty annoying and I end up regretting going on a date with them in the first place. I'm not trying to be hard to get, I just don't want to talk to someone multiple times per day, even per hour, who I have gone on one or two dates with. I want to continue going on dates with them and hanging out with them in person to get to know them better - but they really want to ask me my every inner thought via gchat. At first I thought it was just one or two guys that I happened to encounter, but I've gone on dates with at least 10 guys who have all done the same hyper interested clingy annoying stalking type thing because the internet makes it easy for them. I really wish they would just ignore me for a few days.
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily agree than men are more likely than women to play "hard to get." I think it depends more on the dynamics of the relationship, and whether one party feels stronger about the other. I don't think guys do it more often, or at least not on purpose...
ReplyDeleteI agree that men are more likely than women to play hard to get. But the playing field is most likely tipped by our biology - I would think. It's the men's game to spread their seed and the women's game to be choosy. Thus, when we, females, make our choice, we've made it carefully. I believe this gives us more reason to attempt to hold onto our man and act eager.
ReplyDeleteThe flip-side, however, is when we're just leading a guy on. In that case, it may be that a man chose us and we're riding on the attention. Here we are probably the masters of playing hard to get because we don't really care whether or not we lose the man.