The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

We at Dating Strategery want to sincerely apologize for the lack of postings recently. We are in the middle of finals and are trying to to pass our classes so we can return next year with more brilliant strategeries for your enjoyment.

To tide you over, a friend forwarded this online article to me regarding Game Theory and how it could affect your dinner party. Here you go:

The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox: How economics and game theory explain the shortage of available, appealing men.

By Mark Gimein

Actually, no—and here's why. Consider the classic version of the marriage proposal: A woman makes it known that she is open to a proposal, the man proposes, and the woman chooses to say yes or no. The structure of the proposal is not, "I choose you." It is, "Will you choose me?" A woman chooses to receive the question and chooses again once the question is asked.

The idea of the woman choosing expressed in the proposal is a resilient one. The woman picking among suitors is a rarely reversed archetype of romantic love that you'll find everywhere from Jane Austen to Desperate Housewives. Or take any comic wedding scene: Invariably, it'll have the man standing dazed at the altar, wondering just how it is he got there.

Obviously, this is simplified—in contemporary life, both sides get plenty of chances to be selective. But as a rough-and-ready model, it's not bad, and it contains a solution to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox.

You can think of this traditional concept of the search for marriage partners as a kind of an auction. In this auction, some women will be more confident of their prospects, others less so. In game-theory terms, you would call the first group "strong bidders" and the second "weak bidders." Your first thought might be that the "strong bidders"—women who (whether because of looks, social ability, or any other reason) are conventionally deemed more of a catch—would consistently win this kind of auction.

But this is not true. In fact, game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by "weak" bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the "strong" bidders will hold out for a really great deal. You can find a technical discussion of this here. (Be warned: "Bidding Behavior in Asymmetric Auctions" is not for everyone, and I certainly won't claim to have a handle on all the math.) But you can also see how this works intuitively if you just consider that with a lot at stake in getting it right in one shot, it's the women who are confident that they are holding a strong hand who are likely to hold out and wait for the perfect prospect.

This is how you come to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which is no longer so paradoxical. The pool of appealing men shrinks as many are married off and taken out of the game, leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short, socially awkward, underemployed). And at the same time, you get a pool of women weighted toward the attractive, desirable "strong bidders."

Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.

Evolutionary psychologists will remind us that there's a long line of writing about "female choosiness" going back to Darwin and the male peacocks competing to get noticed by "choosy" mates with their splendid plumage. But you don't have to buy that kind of reductive biological explanation (I don't) to see the force of the "women choose" model. You only have to accept that for whatever socially constructed reason, the choice of getting married is one in which the woman is usually the key player. It might be the man who's supposed to ask the official, down-on-the-knee question, but it usually comes after a woman has made the central decision. Of course, in this, as in all matters of love, your experience may vary.

There may be those who look at this and try to derive some sort of prescription, about when to "bid," when to hold out, and when (as this Atlantic story urges) to "settle." If you're inclined to do that, approach with care. Game theory deals with how best to win the prize, but it works only when you can decide what's worth winning.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the available, sociable, and genuinely attractive man is a character highly in demand in social settings. Dinner hosts are always looking for the man who fits all the criteria. When they don't find him (often), they throw up their hands and settle for the sociable but unattractive, the attractive but unsociable, and, as a last resort, for the merely available.

The shortage of appealing men is a century-plus-old commonplace of the society melodrama. The shortage—or—more exactly, the perception of a shortage—becomes evident as you hit your late 20s and more acute as you wander into the 30s. Some men explain their social fortune by believing they've become more attractive with age; many women prefer the far likelier explanation that male faults have become easier to overlook.

The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?

Reposted from: http://www.slate.com/id/2188684/

Not all M&As are alike.

The subject of mergers and acquisitions is a popular one in the business realm as well as at BYU, but not in the way you are thinking. Because BYU is pretty much the Mecca of the LDS dating world, everyone has marriage on the brain, and what better example of mergers and acquisitions than marriage. Many of the same things that cause strife for large companies combining their forces also plague newlyweds and thus we can glean wisdom for life from our study of business.

Some marriages unfortunately are essentially acquisitions where one party absorbs the other and the acquired loses their identity. This is very sad but really does happen; I have seen it myself. However, I have also seen marriages that are very closely resemble mergers where both parties asses their strengths and then adopt the traditions and habits to the advantage of the couple as a single unit. This is the more healthy and desirable of the two.

The article highlights several common sources of conflicts during M&As and as I mentioned before, many of them can also double as conflict for newly- and not-so-newly-weds. As in business, newlyweds must at some point make decisions regarding physical facilities. His place, her place, or new place? Should they try to integrate together or start anew on neutral grounds? Another decision is about business processes and who will have responsibility for it. Both parties have been managing their own financials in their own way. Does he take it over? Is she more detailed in her records? Or do they want to attempt to combine forces and take it on as a team? These are important questions for individuals who are considering taking their relationship to the next level.

Similarly, just as clashing corporate cultures can submarine a successful merger, a couple who neglects to assess their own potential clashing cultures may find themselves on opposites sides of an argument instead of on the same team. For example, in his family, the parents helped the children pay for college and the associated expenses. However, in her family, the kids were pushed to fend for themselves with little or no financial support. Or, her family spends Christmas Eve and the entire Christmas Day with the large extended family, whereas his just immediate family spent a quiet holiday at home alone. Like the Daimler-Chrysler merger, even a merger of apparent equals could go awry without proper discussion and planning.

I would not personally be able to handle a relationship based on a concept of acquisition for either party, i.e. either in he is doing the “acquiring” or he leaves behind his personality and interests for mine. I see a marriage as a merger, in the most idealistic sense of the word. A marriage should be an equal partnership with both parties invested in sacrificing for the other, yet preserving themselves too. However as mentioned above, the couple must also be on the lookout for potential obstacles and plan accordingly. A little discussion now, can prevent a lot of pain now.

*Disclaimer: This is written by an idealistic, never married person. Marrieds, do you have anything to add? Am I completely off base? Post your responses in the comments.

Be a Gucci, not a Hucci.

The greatest competition comes from those that enter the market under the radar and dominate in low costs. This can be the most disruptive force on the status quo. When fighting low-cost competitors, there is no success without a complete transformation. Merely changing a minor aspect of a company, or adding a low-cost line will not give a traditional company a competitive edge. It is crucial to understand customer needs besides price and design products and services to cater to needs that are not being addressed by the purely low-cost competitors.

This principle is pertinent to MBA women fighting to succeed in the cutthroat dating market at this university. While some men have high standards in choosing their mates, many more have less on their criteria. Most highly educated girls have difficulties appealing to the dating market because the majority of men is not necessarily seeking “premium” wife material. To them, the highly educated woman may be too high of a price for their need: a sensible wife. To the more “high maintenance” women, those that seem shy, very young, less educated or so-called “low-maintenance” are easy to overlook. However, they can be the exact low-cost disruptive force that pushes out the highly educated women out of the market. The “low-cost” girls end up going on more dates and ultimately getting married, while the “high-cost” women end up being bitter over lost opportunities. However, these "high-cost” women can overcome this by intensifying differentiation. There are sufficient, though small, numbers of men who desire “premium wife material.” The “high-cost” women can capture this market by offering more benefits (e.g. enhancing cooking skills, babysitting to hone maternal skills) in addition to their educational and career merits. This enables the “high-cost” daters to compete with the “low-cost” daters in a win-win situation.

Remember, do not be threatened by young girls. No "Hucci" (pronounced hoochee) knock-offs can really compare to a genuine Gucci.