April 6, 2005

I thought Amerie was only joking when she said “just friends”. I mean, I didn’t take her too seriously. I called her today… IMAGINE! She’s usually the one who calls me!!!! I was trying to mess about, saying something about “How she should come round and I’m make her a good meal and give her a back rub” because she said she had a stressful day… and what did she say… “Can you please not talk to me like that, we are friends! Friends don’t do that do they? You have to choose, friends or nothing!” I’m like WHAT!!!!!!!!! Where is this coming from, lil’ Amerie try get brave you know!!! It’s not about that!!! I MEAN!!! I had this on lock just the other day… after she said that, I was like, hmmm…. Interesting, what’s going on here… In as much as she’s trying to protect her heart, I’m not trying to do any damage!!! Everything I’m doing is well meant, come to think about it, I won’t mind her being my wifey!

It’s very easy to analyse what’s going on using game theory. Lets think of a lil’ game. I’ll call it the “boy meets girl” game. Below is an instance of the game

“Boy meets girl, each has two choices given to them. Both can either choose “Love” or “Run Game”. If both of them choose “Love” they end of in love and they end up quite happy. If one of them chooses “Love” and the other chooses “Run Game” then the person who chooses to love, ends up losing and the person who runs game gains. If both of them choose “Run Game” then nothing major comes out of their meeting and after a while everything dissipates and both of them go their separate ways.

So let’s represent this with a table showing each person’s payoff

________________Love______Run Game
Love _____________3, 3________0, 5
Run Game_________ 5, 0________1, 1

So if this is a game, and the boy’s options are represented with the rows and the girl’s options are represented by the columns. If both of them choose love, the boy and the girl both get 3 points. If the boy chooses Love and the girl chooses Run Game, then the boy gets 0 points and the girl gets 5 points. If the boy chooses Run Game and the girl chooses Love, then the boy gets 5 points and then girl gets 0 points. If both of them choose Run Game, then both get 1 point each.

When a boy meets a girl, there are no guarantees and no one knows the other person’s intentions. So you don’t know if the other person chooses Love or is trying to run game on you. So what choice to you make? Okay let’s step through this game. Since they are oblivious to each other’s intentions, they have to make a blind choice. Considering everyone is watching out for their heart, for instance trying to maximise their payoff, we can consider the following

From the boy’s perspective, the worst case scenario is when the girl runs game because his potential payoff is either 0 or 1 and the worst payoff for him is a 0 and that is when he chooses Love. Therefore to minimize his worst case cost, he is better off choosing “Run Game” because at least he is guaranteed one point!!!! Likewise for the girl, her worst case scenario is when the boy chooses “Run Game” because her payoff is limited to 0 and 1 point. Therefore to maximize her payoff she is better off choosing “Run Game” therefore she is guaranteed at least 1 point! Therefore the optimal choice for each player is to “Run Game” because at least they are guaranteed at least 1 point, in the worst case (when the other person is running game!)

Let’s also look at it from this point of view to get the state of equilibrium. If both parties (boy and girl) come together and agree they will choose “Love” so that they get the same maximum payoff of 3 points so nobody is better off that the other. The boy will go off and think…hmmm… I know this girl is going to choose Love because its is what we have agreed, if I choose to Run Game I can maximize my payoff (taking advantage of the situation) and increases his payoff from 3 points to 5 points (great proposition!!!!)… on the other hand the boy also thinks, what if I try to be faithful, but the girl goes behind my back and runs game, therefore she can take advantage of the situation and get a better payoff of 5 points, thus reducing my payoff from 3 to 0 points!!! Therefore there is a huge risk in sticking to the joint decision of “Love”…. BUT if both the boy and the girl agree to “Run Game” then this state can be seen to be the state of equilibrium!!! Because, neither player can improve his/her payoff by changing his/her strategy to “Love” because he/she will end up losing points…. Get it????

Therefore the optimal and the state of equilibrium is to “Run Game”…. So does this theory support the actions or lifestyle of those who call themselves “Players” because either way you don’t lose too much…. Here’s the good part (for women anyway)… if this game is played just once, then maybe it will be a good strategy to always run game, but if this is seen as a repeated game and you “Run Game” all the time, the other player (boy or girl) wont take you seriously because your history says you run game all the time, and if they have to play the game with you, they’ll choose “Run Game” because they know you always run game and to watch out for their hearts it looks like the best choice… In fact if this is a repeated game, the best strategy is TIT-FOR-TAT, by rewarding those to Love by Love and those who run game, by running game!!!!

Despite this theory, in most cases, women still end up losing even though the best strategy is to “Run Game”… this is because, men are logical and women are driven by emotions… so they’ll think they are being disloyal by running game and this is at the expense of their heart…!!!!

This is what is happening with Amerie, she doesn’t want to take me serious, because of all the malarkey Louise’s been feeding her about my past, even though, I’m not a player, because Kelly doesn’t run game, he’s got game but only uses his game for the purpose of finding Ms Right (if that makes sense)????

So it looks like Kelly is loosing on all sides now, because his opponents are playing a tit-for-tat strategy on him, so if the game is played over time, the payoff will be well distributed between both sides….

The good news for me is… how long can Amerie continue playing the “tit-for-tat” strategy, after all, its all a matter of time before the emotions come out and she’s back to square one…. Choosing “Love”, but then will I be choosing “Run Game” or “Love”….

Hmm… food for thought…. Right now, I’m going to bed, listening to Jenny Francis’s slow down zone….

Errr… I could do with snuggling up to Amerie’s well shaped waist on my bed…. DOH!!!!!!! “That’s not gonna happen…” so she says….

DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!