Ladies, show of hands: how many of you have been told that you should play hard to get to get a guy to want you? Thought so. So apart from the obviously glaring wrong premise that it’s supposed to be our job to vie for a guy’s time and attention, there’s another huuuuuge flaw with this logic and I’m going to break it down for you.
The concept of playing hard to get is rooted in the basic economic principle of scarcity: whenever something (or in this case: someone) is considered to be rare, a collectible, limited edition, more people will want it because it’s “special”, correct? So here’s why you can’t (shouldn’t) apply that to people.
First of all, let’s start with the easiest reason. Contrary to popular belief: women are not collectibles. Nobody is of course, but let’s be fair, women are more often treated as such than men.
And this immediately leads me into my second point: by adhering to this rule, these games, you’re reducing yourself to something that someone can “win”, a prize. And as with many prizes, you’ll get played with a little bit, shown off a little bit. Then the winner get tired of you, and then leave you to collect dust on a shelf. It’s really all psychological.
Now before I get accused of the opposite, I’m not telling you to go out and throw yourselves at whoever will have you. Please don’t. Desperation is not sexy. Effort should be reciprocal. An example of this reciprocity: if you’re trying to meet up and they can’t make it, they should come up with a counteroffer. An example of what it is not: “They didn’t text me back for 2 hours so I’m not texting back for 4!” But I digress. The lesson is to be very careful in your little flirtationship, because before you know it you’ll have crossed the line into playing games-territory.
But let me nuance this article a little bit. What’s often considered to be “playing hard to get” is just simply the concept of not being too available to somebody. Why? Because that’s how you teach people to take you for granted.
Basically, here’s what it is. Back in 2014 somebody decided to run some experiments about how and why people play hard to get. There were two scenarios:
- In the first scenario (“easy to get”) people were sent out on a date and acted engaged and interested. These people were perceived as positive and likeable. Sounds good, right?
- The other scenario (“hard to get”) featured people who acted detached and didn’t really engage. These people actually sparked interest and desire.
So I guess that in these experiments expressing interest yields you the “I like you as a friend”-result.
Buuuuuut there’s a precondition that needs to exist for hard-to-get to work. Apparently, the hard to get scenario only worked if the date was with someone who was already at least a little bit interested. Dates that were randomly picked for each other in these experiments (no emotional investment at all) found their “easy to get” dates more desirable.
So in that case playing hard to get yields the “Forget you, you’re not even nice”-result. Who would have guessed?
So what kind of conclusions can we draw here? Well, anything that contains the word “playing” gets on my nerves. I do believe in not making yourself too available, but that’s more about teaching someone that even if things work out between you two, you will not put aside any- and everything for them all the time. But let’s leave that for another blogpost. Can we unequivocally say that playing hard to get is a bad idea? No. Just be very, very careful that you don’t go into “playing games” territory where winning the battle is more important than winning the war. Keep your endgame in mind and your ego in check.
