What women should know about Game Theory

Let's say you start seeing a new guy. And, yes, you get really excited about him. He is very smart, cool, tall, dark and handsome. But you are really unsure whether he likes you or not.

So you decide to give him a signal that you are a cool, smart, independent girl.You obviously don't want to scare the guy away saying how much you like him and how needy and kind of crazy you really are. And here you are, acting really cool because he didn't call 3 days in a row or you are making excuses for his behavior (yes, he's just scared of how much he likes me) and so on.

And that's the road to disaster.

Because you should not be signaling, you should be screening.


You should be acting kind of crazy because you want to know if the guy sticks around it's only because he likes you. You should make sure that the guy will make an effort to see you. If he likes you he will make the effort to signal it.

And the genius advice my micro teacher gave is: the signal should be costly for him. If the guy takes you to an expensive restaurant, that's not s costly effort for him (for most guy I know, at least), he just likes it - with or without you. If he takes you along to things he already likes, it doesn't mean he likes you.

To make sure the guy you are seeing likes you make sure he's sending a costly signal to demonstrate his interest. My personal experience is that no guy likes kind of crazy behavior - but some of them stay even after I act kind of crazy. And the one that matters always stood there. Some of my friends like to take the guys they are dating to family reunions. Others take them to the ballet.

Otherwise he may just be spending time with an easy girl he never actually liked... and you will end up having long dinners with friends trying to understand how a guy that "clearly" liked you dumped you. He may never have liked you on the first place, as harsh as it seems...

And I admit that there is a fine line between acting a little crazy and scaring every guy away. Or you may end up attracting freaks who like really crazy girls.

And - guys - be aware: there's a difference between interesting and hence kind of crazy and  crazy to distract you from the fact that I have a very boring personality...

P.S.: This post is for my awesome professor Asim, who taught me about contract and game theory. I actually wrote in a memo for his class that game theory had helped me on the dating part of my life and that now I was hoping contract theory would help me not get a divorce...