Just Ask People Out (Now with Math)
Previously: Just Ask People Out (for Women)
My #1 piece of generic dating advice is “just ask people out.” It’s what I say to anyone who wishes they had more dates. It’s good advice because it’s one of the few pieces of dating advice that’s not a bravery debate. If you’re already asking people out, you’ll know it and you’ll be able to ignore the advice easily. There’s some room to quibble over how much to ask people out, but it’s very clear if you’re just not doing it, and according to Alexander at Date Pyschology, “About half of single men have not approached a woman in person within the past year.”1 He didn’t even bother asking single women if they approached anyone. Presumably the numbers would be significantly higher.
Up until recently, I was relying mostly on intuition when giving that advice, but my friend Cynthia DiPaula introduced me to a mathematic proof called the “Stable Marriage Problem,” and a Numberphile video explaining it.
I encourage you to watch the whole video (and the followup explaining the math). The basic idea If there are a fixed pool of potential marriage matches, each with stable preference order of other potential matches, there are a limited number of stable marriage configurations. A stable configuration is one where no potential couple both like each other more than they like their current partners, so no two people are willing to break up with their partners and run off together.
The interesting part of the proof is that it shows the huge advantage of being the person who proposes. In the video, it’s the women who do the proposing, but in real life men are the ones who are expected to approach women, propose marriage, and perform yang, so I’ll use men as the example here. Each man proposes to his top choice and is either accepted or rejected. Then in the next round, proposes to his next top choice, and so on. So at the end, once a stable configuration is reached, each man is with his best possible stable match.
Women, on the other hand, do not necessarily get their top match, since they have to decide whether to accept or reject the people who propose to them. If their top match never proposes, they never even get an opportunity. But it’s worse than that. The way the math works out, each woman ends up with her worst possible stable match.
Obviously this isn’t how it plays out in reality. In most places, there is a virtually unlimited pool of potential partners, preferences aren’t stable over time, and lots of people would prefer to stay single than date/marry the first person who asks them. But I still find this a useful illustration of the power of taking the initiative. If you like someone, just ask them out!
Alexander’s data isn’t the most reliable, but is mostly consistent with other data I’ve seen on this topic.