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When on a first date, we try to express ourselves and learn about the other person, but we're also being careful not to offend them either. So we favour the friendly over the controversial -- even at the risk of sounding dull. This approach is best exemplified by an amusing quote from the film Best in Show: "We have so much in common: we both love soup and snow peas, we love the outdoors, and talking and not talking. We could not talk or talk forever and still find things not to talk about."

Basically, in an attempt to co-ordinate on the right dating strategy, we stick to universally shared interests such as food or the weather. It's easy to talk about our views on mushrooms and anchovies over dinner at a pizzeria -- the problem is that this guarantees an anti-stimulating conversation, and certainly it is not a useful measure of our long term romantic prospects.


This is what economists call a bad equilibrium -- it is a strategy that all the players in the game can easily adopt and converge on, but it does not produce a desirable outcome for anyone. My student, Jeana Frost, and I decided to look at this problem in the context of online dating.

We picked apart emails sent between online daters, expecting to be dissecting the juicy details of first introductions. However, we instead found that people gravitate toward boring equilibrium at all costs. They may, in actuality, have interesting things to say, but they presented themselves as utterly insipid. The dialogue consisted mainly of questions such as, "What are your hobbies?"; "What is your line of work?"; "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" We sensed a compulsion from our daters to stay on safe, inoffensive grounds. So, we decided to attempt to push them toward a better equilibrium -- one that would be more satisfying and even enjoyable for all involved.

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What did we do? We limited the type of discussions that online daters could engage in by giving them a preset list of questions from which they were not permitted to deviate. The questions purposefully avoided the banal, and were instead judged (by another group of online daters) to be interesting and personally revealing.

For example: "How many romantic partners have you had?"; "When was your last breakup?"; "Do you have any STDs?"; "What is your sexual fantasy?" This forced them to risk rejection by posing questions that are considered outside of generally accepted bounds (it is important to note that their partners knew in advance that the questions were limited to the preselected list, which made even the more extreme queries somewhat socially acceptable). Once our daters asked a question, their partners responded, and in the process they created dramatically livelier conversations than the ones we had seen previously. Instead of talking about the World Cup or their favourite desserts, they shared their innermost fears or told the story of losing their virginity.

As it turns out, both senders and repliers felt that they learned more in the process and were happier with the interaction.

Think for yourself how much more you would enjoy learning about the sexual fantasies of a potential romantic partner, relative to the number of brothers and sisters they have -- and how much more you might learn about yourself if you had to describe your own sexual fantasies in return.


What we learned from this little experiment is that when people are free to choose what type of discussions they want to have, they often gravitate toward an equilibrium that is easy to maintain, but that no one really enjoys or benefits from. The good news is that, if we restrict the equilibria, we can get people to gravitate toward behaviours that are beneficial for everyone.

And what can you do personally with this idea? Think about how you can make sure that your discussions are not the boring-but-not-risky type. Maybe set the rules of discussion upfront -- suggest to your partner that tonight you will talk only about things you are truly interested in. Or perhaps you can agree to ask five difficult questions first, instead of wasting time talking about your favourite colours. Or maybe you could create a list of topics that are not up for discussion. By forcing people to step out of their comfort zone and risk tipping the relationship equilibria, we might ultimately gain more.

Microbiography

Dan Ariely is the James B Duke professor of behavioural economics at Duke University, North Carolina, and author of Predictably Irrational (HarperCollins)