Before launching into a description of power plays related to romantic relationships, I invite you to find humor this. These are children’s games, and, well, it takes most of us a long time to grow up. We don’t have to take status and power seriously from a personal perspective, although we can recognize it as a motivating factor in human behavior.
Relationships involve a power play that everyone senses on some level but that many might not be conscious of. Fewer have put it into words. First let’s establish that the equality of a match is always a matter of subjective opinion. We look for someone “compatible,” meaning someone having similar values, beliefs, and lifestyle. As Erich Fromm notes, we also look for someone with a roughly equivalent “personality package,” in which appearance, socio-economic standing, charisma, age, and burdens play a part. (Burdens might include children or aging parents that one cares for, or a health issue that imposes limits and requires attention and expense.) Someone who perceives himself or herself to have somewhat less to offer in their total package might persuade a potential partner that they intend to make up for that lack in their personality package by offering greater agreeableness (i.e., willingness to make substantial concessions to the other’s preferences). This person isn’t just nice; they’re super-nice. Thus, a person who is “too nice” might be someone who does not perceive himself or herself as having quite as much to offer in the other areas. This plays into the game of “hard to catch,” because the corollary is that we perceive someone less nice as possibly being more confident that they have a lot to offer in the other areas. Where the power play comes in is that if both partners perceive one of them as having somewhat more to offer, this person maybe has the advantage of getting some concessions from the other. At the same time, the other has the advantage of having found a “better deal,” in the sense of having obtained something of a higher value than what was “given” in exchange.
This adds complexity to the dance of drawing back and moving closer in the beginning of a relationship. Where the subjectivity comes in is that there’s not a standard by which to relate the many variables. On one hand, both may value the degree of compatibility, and on the other hand, there are the personality package variables to weigh. Each person will value some traits more than others, so there really is not any way to reach a definite consensus or fairness. Such decisions are gut-level, made intuitively by the unfathomable algorithms of the “heart,” because using logic alone, we cannot possibly grapple with the delicate balance of so many factors. (Or maybe the decisions are simply biologically based and these variables are just an afterthought, a mental game.)
In the end, research shows that both women and men are actually not drawn to a hard-to-get person, meaning you are likely to prefer someone who seems hard for others to get (i.e., has a lot of attractive attributes and is looking for someone with equally attractive attributes), but who is not evasive about being with you. This affirms both your own attractive attributes and the other’s attractive attributes, and the compatibility between you.
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