swagglain

This is a framework for approaching and understanding heterosexual relationships.

I think about relationships as commodity trading. Where each individual is both the trader and the commodity being traded. There is no common currency, just commodities - it's straight barter trading.

defining value

At the end of the day, "value" is just how much someone is willing to pay for your commodity with their commodity. We're talking exchange rates here - how much of your commodity for how much of mine.

The commodity in question is basically yourself, or rather what you can do for the other person. The act of trading, then, is to actualize this potency in a reciprocal manner. There is a question of intrinsic value (yourself) and this more applicative sense of value (what you can do for the other person), and these two things are, of course, correlated. Much like how the exchange rate of an asset and its PE ratio are correlated (finance heads: think 'earnings' = expected partner utility).

For men, I would say some common intrinsic metrics that tend to dictate value are height, money, attractiveness, intelligence, and personality. But at the end of the day, perception reigns supreme. If other people value you highly, and there is a lot of buying pressure, meaning a lot of other people want to trade with you (or at least it seems like it), your value can seem inflated compared to the intrinsics.

liquidity and why it matters

The liquidity of your asset is shrouded and hard to ascertain. Liquidity here = expected speed at which you can find and complete a mutually agreeable exchange. Because there's no central order book in dating, outsiders can only infer your liquidity through tells.

There are a few major tells, though. If you meet someone, and immediately you spoil them, you give it your all, when they don't really give much up in return, you're essentially hard locking yourself to be low value in their mind. You have no one else to spoil, there is low buy side liquidity for you. So as soon as someone looks like a liquidity source, you jump on it and fill orders.

Also, in order to access you, to trade their commodity with yours, they had to give up very little. Since you essentially gave them everything, there's no reason for them to give up anymore of their value to buy more, because there is nothing left for them to buy.

So to be successful in such a market, you have to control your perceived value (which is hard because the participants have evolved to see through this) while also controlling the available exchange rate and liquidity when trading. Control both perception (how good the commodity looks) and availability (how hard it is to obtain).

what exchanging value looks like (trading)

Now I will look at the market microstructures in this market. Let's say you cold approach a girl, you're basically initiating a buy order for some small amounts of value (time) with her - "30 seconds of your time for 30 of mine?" If she responds, she is filling the order.

Over time, in a relationship, there will be many more trades of increasing value. Conversation escalates to coffee → dinner → sex: successive barter lots of increasing size. If you guys talk, and she asks to go out, she is then initiating a buy order for some of your commodity.

Like markets, you always want to be the liquidity provider (in dating, that means answering after she bids), the one filling orders. Be the quote-setter. Let the other party initiate each larger lot so you choose whether to fill at that higher exchange rate.

If you want to sleep with her, she has to think she is getting equal value or higher. If you limit availability, she'll continually try and place orders with higher and higher value, until she feels like she needs to give that up.

strategies

Like we already talked about, you need to gate liquidity at different exchange rates (don't spoil her/give her everything immediately).

If you cold approach someone, you already start on the back foot, so you have to curate the conversation so she is always the one trying to buy you.

You can do this by letting them know you are continually evaluating them, ex "hmm I don't know, you just don't give me X vibes", after they bring up something they clearly are proud of. Or also, just be the more interesting one and when you're listening to them talk about themselves and act like you expected whatever they said.

Another way is guarding your time and disqualify the relationship going any further. You can do this by saying "well I'm going to be gone after X day and I can't see you today, maybe tomorrow?". This is good because the other person will try and trade with you, buy your commodity, as much as possible before the session closes. Scarcity forces better bids pre-deadline.

Never talk about your exes or how popular you are, it sounds like you are trying to speak it into existence/convince yourself. People who are actually successful/intrinsically high value are often reserved, and don't seek out partners or buy side pressure because they know it's already available to them. In other words, they are secure. Bragging about exes or popularity sounds like spoof orders - cheap signals that real high-value traders don't place.

Women are extremely good at figuring out your value and if you are bullshitting. Because they have millions of years of evolution doing this. On the flip side, you have millions of years of rizzing practice in your brain. You just have to hit flow state. Remember the evolutionary arms race.

Notice how all these strategies are basically:

Controlling perception (perceived value)
Controlling liquidity (actualized/potential value)

You need to be perceived as if you have value, and you need to limit sell side pressure (don't be down bad/needy). If there is high liquidity/sell side pressure, the exchange will reach equilibrium by decreasing the exchange rate of your commodity. But being low liquidity/unavailable doesn't magically raise the exchange rate of your commodity, you need to manufacture buy side pressure (or the perception of it) to do that.

implications of markets with multiple participants

Value is also judged comparatively to other commodities. If I have 3 emeralds and I can either get 5 African diamonds or 10 Russian diamonds. Since they are both diamonds, and I don't care where they come from, I would pick 10 Russian diamonds. Though I might trade for 2 rubies, since I think they're worth more than diamonds or emeralds.

What I am trying to say is, a highly valued person has access to liquidity across many lower valued commodities. If you are just another low value equivalent commodity, you will be cast aside.

You have to set yourself apart from the crowd. Become the ruby instead of just another diamond. You should aim to be unlike any other person they have ever met.

You will not win by giving up more of yourself or your commodity for free. Do not make yourself available. Do not equate this to "trying harder" than everyone else. Especially don't think you "deserve" anything in return if you do give up a lot. Flooding the market with freebies never beats distinctiveness.

embodied phenomena

If you go to a small high school or small environment/exchange, perceptions are often pervasive. If you start out a loser or engage in trade (relationship) with someone of low value, it is extremely difficult to move past that. Conversely, if you date or engage in relations to someone high value, you can parlay this into future success. Reputations stick; early low-value trades can lock your perceived rate permanently.

When entering a new environment, college, or a big city, these perceptions are less clear. You essentially are the only one defining them, through your actions. This is closely related to poker tells at a fresh table w/o regulars vs a home game with people who you understand. Blank slate: your first moves define your liquidity and perceived value.

It is unlikely you will be successful in relationships if the person you are trying to get with thinks they are out of your league. If the counterparty believes her commodity outranks yours, barter fails - she can find a better exchange rate elsewhere.

Trading looks like spending time with each other, paying for dates, having sex. Men and women traditionally give up value in different ways. Like women are usually thought of as giving up sex, which implicitly means the man is giving up other than sex in the trade. Though this is not always the case.

If you notice trading is more tit for tat than atomic unit. It is built off the trust of receiving something in turn. So obviously we start out small to build trust before going for big things. You can think of this as there being a bid ask spread, who gaps to who? Barter is repeated and trust-based, not one-shot. Each small filled order tightens the bid-ask spread, making larger trades palatable.

Providing liquidity means you are the one paying back what is initially given to you. Meaning the other person is the buy side pressure and the one whose actions indicate they want to escalate the value of the trades in the relationship. This allows you to set the exchange rate in your reciprocal action.