All of you shouldn’t hit on the hot chick

(Mr. Thoughtful is on a short leave of absence, and wrote this for me to publish after he left. This post is entirely his creation)

I came across an interesting bit from the movie about the great mathematician and game theorist John Nash. He gives a carefully thought-out solution to the problem of what to do when you and your friends go into a bar and see one beautiful woman and several less attractive women:

…the famous example used in the original Beautiful Mind movie about Nash’s life:
“Given that you are in a bar, would you prefer to pursue the most attractive person in the bar, or would your efforts focus on someone less attractive?”

This seemingly superficial question gets at the following dilemma: if a group of young men are sitting in a bar and a group of women walk in, where one of them is particularly attractive — is it an optimal strategy for all of the young men to pursue the most beautiful woman? As Nash’s character reasons in the movie:

“If we all go after the blond we block each other. Not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends. They will all give us the cold shoulder because nobody likes to be second choice. What if no one goes for the blond and we don’t insult the other girls? That’s the only way we win.”

Hat tip: John List at http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/vote-now-on-the-prisoners-dilemma-contest/

And don’t pretend that 1) you’re such a superstud that the beautiful woman would choose you over the other guys hitting on her, or 2) you wouldn’t go for the less-than-beautiful woman but would hold out for a beautiful woman (bc you date only beautiful women).

An example of number one above is found in Neill Strauss’s “The Game”, when he is in a bar hitting on a hot chick and a minor TV celebrity comes in and tries to get her attention. Neill reportedly had first-class game, but the celebrity had, well, celebrity. In Southern California that counts for a lot. Neill reported that he won out after a fierce pickup duel.