Here is one reason that you’d expect people to sit on their own too little (from the perspective of a benevolent social planner):
If you are sitting on your own, the expected amount of time before someone joins you depends directly on how much the other party-goers want your company. So at any given moment, being seen sitting on your own is evidence of unpopularity. I think most people can feel that in their bones. So going and sitting on your own is guaranteed to generate some evidence that you are unpopular, the only question is how much of it. For people who aren’t constantly analyzing the signaling consequences of everything they do, this may just translate into feeling surprisingly uncomfortable about sitting on their own, even though they normally wouldn’t mind a few minutes of solitude.
It would be some work to actually find the equilibrium, but I think that on average you are going to take a hit (in terms of others’ estimates for your popularity) from striking out on your own. I’d be interested if anyone actually solves.
If true this is a little bit weird—you take an action that we’d expect popular people to take more often, and then people update negatively about your popularity? The trick is in the step where people have better ability to observe “who is sitting on their own right now” than to track the exact sequence of events that occur. For example suppose people scan the room once every few minutes. Then they can notice someone sitting on their own, but if they see a group of 2 people they don’t know who joined whom and so can’t tell whose popularity they should update positively about.
To the extent that’s an important dynamic there are lots of possible fixes.
One simple idea is to designate a space for forming new conversations that isn’t visible from the rest of the party. If I want to start a new conversation with someone random, I go to the designated room. If it’s just me, I do some math or browse the internet or whatever (personally I don’t mind solitude, but do mind awkwardness). When other people join, then we go somewhere else and it’s business as usual.
Of course you could do this better with a machine. I can pull out my phone and press the “new conversation” button, get told if someone else has also pressed “new conversation,” and then start a new group with them. This would be an easy app to make (everyone enters their name and sees a checkbox, when two people within 100 feet check the box, their boxes get unchecked and the second person sees the first person’s name). I would try it.
(ETA: a bolder and sillier solution is to have it be obvious who started the conversation even to observers who quickly scan the room, e.g. because the first person takes a designated sitting-on-your-own seat. Then in theory the positive update from being the first participant in a happening group should offset the negative update from sitting on your own.)
But the point is you might not be sitting and waiting alone, you might just be getting food. (This intuitively feels less bad to me and I’ve in fact done this thing, although if I end up spending too much time there I think it becomes obvious enough to feel bad again)
Here is one reason that you’d expect people to sit on their own too little (from the perspective of a benevolent social planner):
If you are sitting on your own, the expected amount of time before someone joins you depends directly on how much the other party-goers want your company. So at any given moment, being seen sitting on your own is evidence of unpopularity. I think most people can feel that in their bones. So going and sitting on your own is guaranteed to generate some evidence that you are unpopular, the only question is how much of it. For people who aren’t constantly analyzing the signaling consequences of everything they do, this may just translate into feeling surprisingly uncomfortable about sitting on their own, even though they normally wouldn’t mind a few minutes of solitude.
It would be some work to actually find the equilibrium, but I think that on average you are going to take a hit (in terms of others’ estimates for your popularity) from striking out on your own. I’d be interested if anyone actually solves.
If true this is a little bit weird—you take an action that we’d expect popular people to take more often, and then people update negatively about your popularity? The trick is in the step where people have better ability to observe “who is sitting on their own right now” than to track the exact sequence of events that occur. For example suppose people scan the room once every few minutes. Then they can notice someone sitting on their own, but if they see a group of 2 people they don’t know who joined whom and so can’t tell whose popularity they should update positively about.
To the extent that’s an important dynamic there are lots of possible fixes.
One simple idea is to designate a space for forming new conversations that isn’t visible from the rest of the party. If I want to start a new conversation with someone random, I go to the designated room. If it’s just me, I do some math or browse the internet or whatever (personally I don’t mind solitude, but do mind awkwardness). When other people join, then we go somewhere else and it’s business as usual.
Of course you could do this better with a machine. I can pull out my phone and press the “new conversation” button, get told if someone else has also pressed “new conversation,” and then start a new group with them. This would be an easy app to make (everyone enters their name and sees a checkbox, when two people within 100 feet check the box, their boxes get unchecked and the second person sees the first person’s name). I would try it.
(ETA: a bolder and sillier solution is to have it be obvious who started the conversation even to observers who quickly scan the room, e.g. because the first person takes a designated sitting-on-your-own seat. Then in theory the positive update from being the first participant in a happening group should offset the negative update from sitting on your own.)
Maybe the new-conversation—place is the bar or snack-bar. (Plausible deniability!)
Often the bar is very visible though, which makes it trickier. I think outside might be a good option.
But the point is you might not be sitting and waiting alone, you might just be getting food. (This intuitively feels less bad to me and I’ve in fact done this thing, although if I end up spending too much time there I think it becomes obvious enough to feel bad again)