For instance, let’s say you are a man and you meet three women at a bar. The next day you text them. Two respond fairly quickly, and one of them does not respond at all. The first two women have, in a sense, indicated interest by writing back and have, in effect, put your mind at ease. The other woman, since she hasn’t responded, has created uncertainty, and your mind is now looking for an explanation for why. You keep wondering, Why the fuck didn’t she write back? What’s wrong? Did I screw something up? This third woman has created uncertainty, which social psychologists have found can lead to strong romantic attraction.
The team of Erin Whitchurch, Timothy Wilson, and Daniel Gilbert conducted a study where women were shown Facebook profiles of men who they were told had viewed their profiles. One group was shown profiles of men who they were told had rated their profiles the best. A second group was told they were seeing profiles of men who had said their profiles were average. And a third group was shown profiles of men and told it was “uncertain” how much the men liked them. As expected, the women preferred the guys who they were told liked them best over the ones who rated them average. (The reciprocity principle: We like people who like us.) However, the women were most attracted to the “uncertain” group. They also later reported thinking about the “uncertain” men the most. When you think about people more, this increases their presence in your mind, which ultimately can lead to feelings of attraction.8
Another idea from social psychology that goes into our texting games is the scarcity principle. Basically, we see something as more desirable when it is less available. When you are texting someone less frequently, you are, in effect, creating a scarcity of you and making yourself more attractive.
WHAT WE DO WHEN WE ARE INTERESTED
Sometimes there’s another reason that people take so long to text you back: They aren’t playing mind games or busy. They’re just GOOGLING THE FUCK OUT OF YOU.
In one 2011 survey, more than 80 percent of millennials admitted to doing online research on their partner before a first date.9 And why not? With our expanded dating pools, we’re meeting people we hardly know, including total strangers with no existing social ties to us. Fortunately, the same technology that allows us to connect with them also helps us figure out whether they post cute pictures of baby elephants or something more malicious, like a blog chronicling their latest elephant-poaching expedition in Botswana.
Usually Internet research turns up little more than some basic biographical information and a smattering of photographs from Facebook and Instagram. Some singles said even this relatively minimal content is helpful, because it gives them clues about people’s interests and character before meeting them. That makes sense to me, since you could argue that the photos posted on an Instagram page offer a more compelling and realistic representation of someone than their carefully crafted online dating profile.
Others see the process as harmful, though, because reading too much of a person’s online history can deprive them, and their date, of the fun of discovering someone new. Some singles we spoke with described meeting a person and being unable to enjoy the date because they already had all kinds of preconceived notions that were difficult to block out.
One gentleman I met told me that the personal information we can so easily obtain online often causes him to be too harsh on people. “I’ll go through and look at their entire timeline of tweets. I’ll see one dumb thing I don’t agree with, and then I kind of mentally check out on the date,” he said.
It may be harsh to judge someone’s personality off a tweet or two, but if you’re serious about your research, the Internet offers a whole lot more information than that. When we posed the question of first-date Internet research to the subreddit, we heard some serious horror stories.
One woman recounted canceling a date after a brief bit of research:
I googled my date who had a very distinctive name. According to a weekly synagogue newsletter, he and his wife were hosting a Torah class for children in their home the same day as our date.
This has also been recorded as the only time in history someone has said, “Whew, I’m glad I read that weekly synagogue newsletter.”
Other stories were even more horrific.
One woman wrote:
[A] friend from work met a firefighter in a bar a few months ago. They talked a lot that night/exchanged numbers and were texting back and forth for the next week while setting up a first date. He told her he didn’t have a facebook and when she mentioned that to some other people, they told her she should be concerned that he might be lying and actually have a girlfriend or be married. So she google searched his name + LA fire department and found that there was a news story on him (with a video!) about how he AND HIS MOTHER beat up an elderly woman who was feeding stray cats on their street. She immediately stopped talking to him.
This is why I always say: If your mother asks you to come beat up an elderly woman on the street for feeding stray cats—JUST SAY NO. It’ll always come back to haunt you.
WHAT WE DO WHEN WE AREN’T INTERESTED