Possible Application of Game Theory to Relationships?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theor ... ame_theory

Basically, understanding what people tend to 'choose' in relationships, and making one's self fulfill more of the categories people tend to base choice upon, it could very well work in our favor. I remember first seeing something like this in "A Beautiful Mind", where John Nash puts up a game plan for him and all his friends to get laid, and when they go against it they all fail. It could make a very interesting scenerio, learning how to play out this so-called 'game' that applies to human behavior. As Aspies we essentially fail to understand and automatically follow the rules like other people do in this evolutionary game. If we were to apply a very logical approach to the problem however, we could end up very lucky.

The point is to figure out how to play out the game, and then change the rules to a more relaxed setting once we have who we desire. I think we all understand NTs are born with understanding of this game, but understanding it logically ourselves could very well serve us. It's a bit like just speaking English naturally or being one who learns all the rules and terms behind it. Who do you think should fare better?

I don't want to play any games. I don't have that energy!

I have my own way of "courting" someone, and it has nothing to do with game theory or statistics.

NT's are just as ignorant of the game as we are. We each have to learn it consciously.

There might be general strategies but there are too many variables so the optimal strategy is probably not rigid.

Frankly it sounds bloody exhausting. I would *quite like* a boyfriend, but if it required my to expend that much energy, I might just buy a cat.

Plus with cats you don't need to be a math expert.

Ed Almos

Let's set up a simple game and see what happens, modeling the behavior of two shy AS individuals. Suppose we have person A and person B. Each person wants to maximize their social-reproductive joint status by mating with the highest status individual possible. Now these two run into each other in a bar, and courting begins (we will simplify our assumptions by assuming that they haven't drunk anything). We assume two strategies: accept/advance, or hold out.

If A holds out and B holds out, nothing spent nothing lost, but they view themselves as holding out for a more worthy mate, preserving dignity. If one advances and the other declines, there is wasted time and energy, plus serious embarassment. If both accept, they finally have someone, and are very happy. If one declines the other's advances, then there is a positive assertion of autonomy and an affirmation of superiority. The payoff table looks thus:

..................|A holds out | A accepts |
B holds out | ..... 1/1 ........|... -3/3........|
B accepts .. |...... 3/-3 .......|.... 2/2 ........|

Good god, it's a prisoner's dilemma. The dominant strategy is to avoid one another like the plague. This is the essence of the shy, but picky, Aspie dilemma. But the more important lesson, is never contemplate relationships when you haven't slept in a few days.

Well ladies, if that doesn't show my dating prowess I don't know what will

twoshots I think your comment is particularly insightful because it illustrates a link I believe there is between high functioning spectrum behavior and recent research. You stated that one of the losses was due to embarrassment. For the sake of simplicity, we can use an umbrella term like negative emotional reaction. It's suspected that due to changes in the social development of people on the spectrum from specific differences in neurobiology, that those individuals don't ascribe the same emotional weight to stored memories/events IIRC.

But, we still have the same emotions, even if the applications aren't the same. IME it seems like those I have are very strong, if infrequent. Since I have little experience with them they impact me more than they seem to impact others, which is why events such as dating, in which I may have a significant interest in someone else, could lead to the perception of rejection as being such a significant negative event, even if it isn't for most, since they are for lack of a better description, used to it. My problem isn't that I don't experience emotions, it's that I don't experience them according to the same metric that most do, and since my social development depends on my emotional interactions, minimizing them stunts my social development compared to most. For the sake of argument, what if we don't have negative emotions as a detractor, and that holding out would be worthless since at the moment there isn't enough information to gauge whether or not the individual could or couldn't be a worthy mate?
0,0|-2,2
2,-2|2,2
Seems almost too egalitarian doesn't it, like Jr. High? Ultimately the perceptions people build about each other would encourage them to make choices as to whether or not the other is worth engaging since the initial gambit isn't what makes the relationship work, so we wouldn't run around dating willy nilly forever. Anyway, it's been years since I took game theory, so forgive me if my interpretations aren't correct.

It also seems that if we could actively encourage plasticity via some sort of training mechanism in the portion of our brain associated with this difference, we could gain social interaction skills with a degree of faculty equal to or better than most others.


Perhaps I'm simply reading into this with too much enthusiasm and not enough experience, but it's fun nevertheless.

P.S. Emphasis added in bold of course.

How 'bout a girlfriend?

I have actually slept with girls! It wasn't really my thing, but I'm open to the idea in future with someone different, if it happened to happen. I don't really don't know if it would be any easier than having a boyfriend though? I think girls can be equally confusing.

Adopt...

twoshots, their first mistake was meeting up in a bar. Bars are bad places for sincere and quiet people to meet others like themselves.