The Strategy OF Dating

So, my strategy and dating post was really for a class, but I got lots of compliments on it from my peers in the business school who thought I actually had a good comparison between Porter's Five Forces and dating.

This post is not an assignment. From recent observation, I have noticed the different strategies in dating. There's basically only two from what I can see: there's the strategy of complete honesty and the strategy of playing hard to get.

Complete honesty is the most honorable of the strategies. There is no game, and you never have to guess what the other person is thinking. You are honest in your opinions and therefore a lot of the painstaking analysis that goes on in your head is taken away. And the lack of over-thinking, unfortunately, is what makes this strategy mostly unsuccessful.

Playing hard to get is a game. You never know exactly what is going on or what the other person is thinking about, and therefore you think about it constantly trying to figure it all out. The incessant "what did that mean?" "how did I feel about that?" "what just happened?" stream of consciousness NEVER ends. When you constantly think about something, you suddenly hope for and imagine things that weren't there. Those hopes and thoughts might even turn into actions, and THAT is why, as aggravating as it is, playing hard to get is the best dating strategy. But you can't play too hard to get or the other person will give up on you.

(And there is a final word of caution. Sometimes the "hard to get" strategy that you THINK you are getting might actually just be him/her trying to nicely give you the cold shoulder.)

I mean think about it. If you were completely honest in all of your relationships, there would be no mystery and no excitement. I know some people say that they wished they could have the name or the picture of their Mr. Right. And to that, I want to say that you are ridiculous. Not only will that never happen, but if it did you wouldn't have the chance to fall in love with them and find out WHY they are Mr. Right.

It's the mystery and challenge of life that keeps us going. Let's take my job for example. It was hard work to get my job, and that is what makes it so rewarding. If it was easy for you to snag the perfect person, it wouldn't be as rewarding. It would just be... normal.

Of course, the "hard-to-get" game is really frustrating and lame after a while. But let's face it, dating has a 99.9% failure rate. It is frustrating, and it is hard, and its hard to keep at it sometimes when you feel like you aren't going anywhere.

Moses 6:55 says "and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good."Marriage would not be a wonderful, beautiful thing if you didn't have to sacrifice to make it there.

So, my fellow single readers, as Carrie Underwood sings in a song "play on, when you're losing the game, play on, because you're going to make mistakes. It's always worth the sacrifice."

Play on.

But don't be too cruel. Being vague is probably the best way to play hard to get without being mean.

Ok I'm really done now.