Okay, this is getting tricky, so bear with me: if you start from a “universal consistent female rejection equilibrium”, then women do not gain from defecting to do a “rejection probe” because the male’s reaction would just be to give up, and thus be uninformative. Right?
Of course, that still wouldn’t refute the difficulty of moving to that equilibrium from the current one...
Do you mean, if you start from the state where women always reject someone they’re not interested in clearly, never change their mind about who they’re interested in, and where men always stop pursuing after a women’s clear rejection? In that case, yes, women don’t gain from defecting.
(Some of the effects you’re talking about can be explained by women changing their mind, which isn’t exactly dishonesty.)
Yes, that’s what I mean, and doesn’t it establish the asymmmetry I claimed?
As for nondishonest changing minds, this goes back to the telemarketing/spam problem: even if you like a product thereby offered, it’s still (widely regarded as) wrong to purchase it, as that encourages a harmful, unethical practice. I submit it’s wrong for the same reasons to reverse a rejection, even if it’s honest, as that encourages (harmful) persistence.
Perhaps a big part of the problem is how there’s no way to credibly signal different levels of rejection—heck, even a simple “no, I’m busy” can’t be taken literally!
Yes, that’s what I mean, and doesn’t it establish the asymm[]etry I claimed?
But in that situation, men don’t gain from defecting either, because we’re assuming women always reject someone they’re not interested in, and never change their mind.
But spam/telemarketing works, for a certain value of working. Even after being repeatedly told about the dangers of spam/etc there are still people who will end up falling for it ‘just this once’.
I suspect the problem is that a lot of people are vulnerable to persistence-based hacks, and that this is even more true in dating since the potential gain from giving in is much higher. (And the potential loss is low if you only consider local consequences—just a single evening of putting up with an annoying guy)
Perhaps a big part of the problem is how there’s no way to credibly signal different levels of rejection—heck, even a simple “no, I’m busy” can’t be taken literally!
Sometimes you can’t even take a “Yes, here’s my phone number, yes, you can call me” literally. I found that out the hard way. :(
On several occasions, girls have given me their phone number after a friendly conversation, and when I called or texted, I got back an angry message from the girl, or her boyfriend, saying that she had a boyfriend and not to talk to her again (even when I was dating someone and was just looking for friendship). I can only assume that the boyfriend had issues and changed her mind.
It’s more common to have a good conversation with a girl, have her give you her number and tell you to call her, and then have her screen your calls and never return them.
Same has happened to me at least once that I remember. If you’re a female and want to know how common this is, poll your male friends to see how many other instances come out of the woodwork. And if you are surprised, please recognize your atypicality.
At a restaurant I go to frequently, I had several pleasant conversations with one of the waitresses. I asked her for her phone number, so we could talk more. (I tried to indicate that I was interested in friendship rather than romance.) She wrote it on a napkin for me. I asked if I could call her on a specific evening, and she said that I could. When I called her, I received no answer, and from then on, she avoided me when I went to the restaurant. (I strongly suspect that the phone number was fake.)
A different waitress was kind enough to turn me down directly.
Okay, this is getting tricky, so bear with me: if you start from a “universal consistent female rejection equilibrium”, then women do not gain from defecting to do a “rejection probe” because the male’s reaction would just be to give up, and thus be uninformative. Right?
Of course, that still wouldn’t refute the difficulty of moving to that equilibrium from the current one...
Do you mean, if you start from the state where women always reject someone they’re not interested in clearly, never change their mind about who they’re interested in, and where men always stop pursuing after a women’s clear rejection? In that case, yes, women don’t gain from defecting.
(Some of the effects you’re talking about can be explained by women changing their mind, which isn’t exactly dishonesty.)
Yes, that’s what I mean, and doesn’t it establish the asymmmetry I claimed?
As for nondishonest changing minds, this goes back to the telemarketing/spam problem: even if you like a product thereby offered, it’s still (widely regarded as) wrong to purchase it, as that encourages a harmful, unethical practice. I submit it’s wrong for the same reasons to reverse a rejection, even if it’s honest, as that encourages (harmful) persistence.
Perhaps a big part of the problem is how there’s no way to credibly signal different levels of rejection—heck, even a simple “no, I’m busy” can’t be taken literally!
But in that situation, men don’t gain from defecting either, because we’re assuming women always reject someone they’re not interested in, and never change their mind.
But spam/telemarketing works, for a certain value of working. Even after being repeatedly told about the dangers of spam/etc there are still people who will end up falling for it ‘just this once’.
I suspect the problem is that a lot of people are vulnerable to persistence-based hacks, and that this is even more true in dating since the potential gain from giving in is much higher. (And the potential loss is low if you only consider local consequences—just a single evening of putting up with an annoying guy)
Sometimes you can’t even take a “Yes, here’s my phone number, yes, you can call me” literally. I found that out the hard way. :(
I find this surprising, and request details to assist my updating.
On several occasions, girls have given me their phone number after a friendly conversation, and when I called or texted, I got back an angry message from the girl, or her boyfriend, saying that she had a boyfriend and not to talk to her again (even when I was dating someone and was just looking for friendship). I can only assume that the boyfriend had issues and changed her mind.
It’s more common to have a good conversation with a girl, have her give you her number and tell you to call her, and then have her screen your calls and never return them.
Same has happened to me at least once that I remember. If you’re a female and want to know how common this is, poll your male friends to see how many other instances come out of the woodwork. And if you are surprised, please recognize your atypicality.
At a restaurant I go to frequently, I had several pleasant conversations with one of the waitresses. I asked her for her phone number, so we could talk more. (I tried to indicate that I was interested in friendship rather than romance.) She wrote it on a napkin for me. I asked if I could call her on a specific evening, and she said that I could. When I called her, I received no answer, and from then on, she avoided me when I went to the restaurant. (I strongly suspect that the phone number was fake.)
A different waitress was kind enough to turn me down directly.