A guy sometimes says stuff that, for reasons completely mysterious to him, hurts a girl’s feelings. It comes out that she’s hurt and he desperately tries to explain. He didn’t mean it. He didn’t think she would interpret it that way. He was just talking. She’s taking it too personally.
He forgets to call, he misses important dates, he get stalled by unexpected commitments. She listens to all of his excuses.
He’s trying to convince her that he had the right intentions. You see, he thinks that relationships are all about moral hazard. He wants her to know that he’s trying hard, but mistakes get made.
And he can never figure out why this isn’t enough for her. But the reason is simple. For her, relationships are all about adverse selection. It’s not his actions per se, it’s what they reveal about his type. She’s perfectly willing to forgive his missteps, she believes him that he’s trying hard and that he didn’t know he was being a louse, but that’s precisely the problem. If he weren’t such a lemon he would know the right way to say things, she’d always be in his thoughts, and she’d always be his highest priority.
8 comments
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September 20, 2010 at 6:34 pm
rd
another classic 🙂
September 20, 2010 at 8:27 pm
jeff
🙂
September 20, 2010 at 8:25 pm
tony
Excellent post. I am going to forward this to everyone I know.
September 20, 2010 at 8:27 pm
jeff
thanks tony
September 20, 2010 at 8:40 pm
rd
i should say instant classic
September 21, 2010 at 12:17 am
wd40
Very insightful.
September 21, 2010 at 1:19 am
PC
That is because women think that there are two types of men: ‘Pigs’ and the ‘Knight in Shining Armor’.
While men know that men are all ‘Pigs’, even if they wear shining armors.
September 24, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Comment Bait « 36 Chambers – The Legendary Journeys: Execution to the max!
[…] Jeff at Cheap Talk makes a joke point that “men are from moral hazard, women are from adverse selection.” Being an economist, Jeff makes an entirely understandable mistake: he assumes the women in this point are rational. Most* women are not rational. This allows me to come up with a much simpler explanation for this behavior: women are nuts and expect contradictory behavior which matches perfectly their indecisiveness and sudden mood swings. They are also neurotic and require constant consolation, without which they become afraid and lash out. […]