Market Values

I think I've got the whole game nailed in one sweet graph.

Actions and decisions should be orientated towards rational choice theory, i.e. avoid coordinates within the Zone of Pain (bad! bad! bad!), hopefully venturing past the grey areas of Awkwardness into the glorious Dating Zone, with sights set firmly on Marriage Potentials. Maximize pleasure minimize pain. Simple game plan.

Distractions are bound to happen en route to Marriage Potentials, so gently ease into them, don't resist because its all part of the process. Concave curves y = f(x) that stretch through F-buddy zones being the easiest to fall for, or convex curves y = f'(x) that stretch through Friend zones being the most accessible in everyday life. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between the two.

Anyway, there's an unspoken rule: you can always add a constant k to either side of the equation, i.e. y + k =f(x) or y = f'(x) + k, to enhance your own x and y values and to attract the people with the right attributes. k is, of course, money. You spend some k on your dressing, a gym membership and doing up your hair and voila! your x value increases. You spend some k on self-improvement classes, reading The Economist, getting that post-graduate degree, and bang! y value goes up.

But with most things in mathematics, the shortest distance is always a straight line. So the trade secret is to tread a line with the equation y = x, and hopefully you can locate coordinates on this line that somehow evade the Zone of Pain (avoid!), squeeze through the small gap between the Awkwardness ellipses, wade through the whole Dating Zone, and you'll soon find yourself in Marriage Potentials heaven. Only problem is, most of us are so hung up with looking out for coordinates in the Null Value set, i.e. searching for "The One". So instead, we insist on even higher x and y values even if they are unattainable Null Values, and sulk for the rest of our lives without knowing why.

Caveat emptor: For someone who lies predominantly within the Zone of Pain (sucks!) and spends most of his days whining in self-pity, my dating advice market value assessment model should be taken with a pinch buckets of salt. The factor of time is also missing in the above graph, so in reality we compromise and rush into marriage by the time we hit our expiration dates, with partners whose values are smaller than ideal. More importantly, there are always two different graphs in a relationship; as much as you are assessing someone else, the other person is doing the same assessment with you, albeit with different units of x and y values. And generally speaking, men's emphasis is on x values and women on y values, so you know where to spend your k on now, don't you?

Oh, what a useless post.