Some Thoughts

Today as I was perusing Facebook I saw that a girl who used to like me is now engaged. It's kind of weird, not even a year ago she told me how she felt about me, and now she's getting married. If the pictures are any indication she seems happy.

Anyway, this got me to thinking. I tried to figure out why I didn't want to date her. She was pretty and smart, she had a good sense of humor (she at least laughed at the appropriate times). Really, if I was to write out a list of the qualities I'm looking for she had most of them. But something was off.

Now that I've given it some thought, I think the reason why I didn't want to keep dating her was that it was too easy. And I feel bad for saying that. It makes me sound very fickle. But I think the reason I didn't like her was she liked me and I didn't have to do anything at all.

The first time I met her was at a game night. She was having games over at her place and she went around the apartment complex inviting people to come over. She knocked on my door and I remember thinking "wow, she's pretty." So, two of my roommates and I headed over.

I put myself on my best behavior and made sure that I was funny and all that, I had her laughing pretty quick. I started going over to her apartment just to talk, and after a while, she just opened up and said how she felt. The moment she did I remember thinking, "well, I guess that's over." It was amazing that as soon as she opened up like that, I didn't really care anymore.

My question is, why is that? I know similar things happen with girls. I have found no faster way of chasing off a girl than to to honestly express my feelings for her*(see footnote 1). I think the problem is we expect to put in a lot of effort for things that are worthwhile. When it's too easy to be with someone we don't care anymore. This is especially problematic for pretty girls, so I call it "the pretty girl problem."

The Pretty Girl Problem Explained:

Basically, the "pretty girl problem" is meant to explain why when someone likes you too easily you don't like them back. It's like this. When you're attractive, although a lot of people want to date you, you don't want to date any of them. Simple economics: if supply is high, value goes down. This is why many people hear pretty girls annoyingly say "there aren't any good guys to date." Well, there are plenty of good guys, the problem is that pretty girls don't feel anything for these nice guys cause they've never invested themselves in a relationship.

Here is another way of looking at it:

There are two principles at play here. 1) we value what we work for 2) people naturally do as little work as possible.

So, since guys will work very hard to be with a pretty girl, they're willing to put forth all the effort necessary for the relationship. The result is that the girl does very little (principle 2). And since the girl does very little, she doesn't value the guy (principle 1). This of course results in her complaining about not liking any of the guys that ask her out...and the cycle continues ad nauseum.

In some ways being very attractive is like being really smart. A certain amount is good, too much is debilitating. With intelligence, it's good to be in the 120 to 130 IQ range. If you are, you're smarter than nearly everyone you meet, you can do anything you want with your life (intelligence will never be your weakness), and you're relatively stable. Beyond this point, as you get smarter, you get less stable, and you start having difficulty interacting with others. So, while it seems like the smarter you get the better off you'll be, beyond a certain point intelligence is a liability. Similarly, as far as appearances and relationships go, it seems like average to above average looking people find romantic happiness fastest. It's the really ugly people and the really attractive people who struggle--beautiful people because of the reasons mentioned earlier, and ugly people cause no one wants to date them.

Figure 1a. What a beautiful person might look like




Figure 1b. What an ugly person might look like (Yoko!!!!).

But that was a bit of a tangent. My main point was this girl liked me too much and too easily, so I didn't feel anything for her...she awkwardly put me in the "pretty girl problem."

The kicker is how do we ever get excited about someone if them liking us too much is a turn off? I think the answer to this is that the relationship has to progress naturally. You both need to open up at a steady pace, not too fast so that you're taken for granted, and not so slowly that one of you loses interest.

It seems to me that intimacy should be earned, that gives it value. When you spend time with someone and you see them warming to you, and when they start to share things with you, and trust you, you feel great. You feel like you deserve what they're sharing with you...you feel like you're working for something and it's paying off (and once again, this makes you appreciate it.)

I think this might be why it's hard to change a friendship to a romantic relationship. When we try to do that, there isn't the initial excitement of a new relationship cause we already know so much about the other person. There isn't a sense of discovery. It's not like there will be the thrill of earning trust. In many ways you're already there-- you're like people who have been together for a while. So, upgrading friendship usually doesn't have the initial mystery or passion of spontaneous relationships. There is of course the excitement when you take the risk and let them know how you feel, but this provides only a short window of opportunity. In many ways upgrading friendship is like trying to make an existing fire burn hotter...you can only do this by finding new materials (new aspects of your relationship) to burn...and the corollary is that when you're trying to convert passion into a more lasting friendship it's like having a hot (but fast) burning fire (you know-- the kind that starts easy but doesn't last very long (usually newspaper and dried grass))...so you scramble for slower burning materials (friendship) to keep the fire going* (footnote 2).

Summed up, when a relationship begins as a romantic one there is excitement. People pursue these relationships in the hopes that it will end up as something more stable, something more secure and lasting. The flip side is that when a relationship begins as friendship and turns romantic, the romance has to be found outside of the process of discovery. This makes things take longer...but at least you know what you're getting into, at least you know you'll get along.


Once again, coming back from that tangent, I guess it's just frustrating cause I've found that nearly every time a girl has really liked me I haven't cared for her. And it seems like the criterion for me liking a girl is that she's unavailable...there's the chase--the mystery. I think that's the problem, it's a lot more fun to chase than to catch. Cause once you catch something you gotta decide if you even want it.

Anyway, those are the thoughts that went through my head today. I wish this wasn't so complicated. I guess maybe it doesn't have to be complicated. I'll just flatter myself and say I make things complicated cause I'm on the side of the the intelligence scale where my brain is a liability :)...yeah, I can handle that explanation.

Hope you all have a fabulous day!

Appendix A:

I just read this post to my roommate John. He's a wise psychology major and so this post's theme better fits his discipline (philosophy is a very lonely guy's club). This is what he said... paraphrased:

I agree with you, but I think part of the reason that people don't want to be with someone who likes them too much is that when something is a sure thing its kinda scary. When people just meet each other they can feel the chemistry and all that and say "the stars are aligning and this is working," but if things don't work out they can just walk away and say "it wasn't meant to be." When you know someone likes you, you can't say "well, I guess there wasn't anything between us" because you know they felt something. So you know things didn't work out because you didn't want them to work out--the responsibility falls squarely on your shoulders.

John's second point was that when you know someone is really into you, and they're showing more interest than you feel, you know that if you open up to them, things will progress faster than you're ready for because they're already a few steps ahead of you in their desire for a relationship.

Point 1...I respond saying just give it a shot, if it doesn't work out you can still say it wasn't meant to be. We're talking about boyfriend and girlfriend...not marriage. Dating is like the clinical trials pharmaceutical companies go through before a drug comes out (I bet you can feel a horrible simile on it's way :). Clinical trials go in stages. There is phase 1 where they use animals to see if there is anything there...to see if the medication can bring about a change. This is a very non-threatening part where there is minimal risk, but you can learn about the medication you got. This is of course like dating at the beginning stages...no risk, you don't learn all that much, but you see if anything between you works. Phase 2 in clinical trials is when they start testing the medication on humans. They now want to see if they can reproduce those results..and they want to see if the medication is safe. This is when you're boyfriend and girlfriend. Now you want to see if things work between you when you're more committed to finding out what's between you (it's not just minimal risk now, now a person can get hurt). And phase 3 trials is when you try to see if the drug is marketable (financial questions), you try to test to see if it will profit from future trials (will the couple continue to grow) you try to see if it will work well for a long period of time (staying power in the relationship). So phase 3 trials are like getting engaged. This is your last chance to test the efficacy of the drug (relationship) before you take it to market (marriage). Taking a drug to market is very expensive and time consuming. And once you do there is no turning back...cause no one wants a drug recall (divorce)--those are so embarrassing...and there might be a class action suit brought against you (alimony).

(yeah, I just compared dating, a committed relationship, engagement, and marriage to drug clinical trials (and I'm not taking it back). Next time any of you want to date someone seriously tell them you're ready to progress to phase 2 clinical trials...they'll love you forever :)

Point 2...if they're more into you, the principle of someone liking you still applies. If you begin to return their feelings they will eventually start to like you less...just the way the game works. So, one way of making them put on the brakes is for you to hit the accelerator.

Anyway, that's what my friend's engagement got me thinking about. This was the fourth time in about 4 years where a girl has liked me, I've lost interest, I've called things off, and then she got married within a year...I needed to figure out why...what I have presented here is the best solution I could come up with...so, my answer is I'm falling into "the pretty girl problem." I don't like the way that sounds but I'm done writing...I need to head to bed.

Footnotes *

1) small side theory here: it's best to just show her how you feel-- hold hands etc.--rather than to honestly express your feelings. I'm the opposite, I say how I feel first and then I suit my actions to my words...my way is too direct/honest, and certainly not very romantic. Girls seem to like things that happen spontaneously...even magically. So try to do that if you can. I would if I could, I' just can't cause I'm not wired that way, I gotta say how I feel or I feel dishonest.

2) this comparison reminds me of a famous quotation: "love is friendship set on fire"-- Jeremy Taylor.