Dating Matrix

So, I was in Bangalore for a couple of months on a project. I was at a bar on a Saturday night and doing my ‘research’ on modern-day dating in the new city. It was around 10 in the night, and a girl came and sat by the bar counter, a couple of stools away from me.

I approached her with a subtle compliment about her shoes. Precise compliments show sharp observation and are far better than generic ones like “You’re so beautiful,” which often come across as insincere. Avoid clichés like “Can I buy you a drink?”—it can make you seem desperate and attention-seeking. Instead, start light and casual, relevant to the situation. If she responds, continue the conversation; if she ignores you, move on.

We hit it off, and ironically she bought drinks for us. One thing led to another and ended up in my room at the end of the night. It was around 3 in the night, I had dimmed the lightning and we were sitting on my bed with our drinks. Suddenly, she asked me whether I even knew her name. I tried to dodge the question, but she figured out that I didn’t know her name. She dared me to tell her name and she would come on top of me at that very moment. And I laughed it off by saying, “what’s in the name?”. She didn’t look convinced though.

Anyway, coming to the MBA concept of a ‘2X2 matrix‘. Consulting firms, most commonly BCG, primarily use it to evaluate the tradeoffs of two mutually exclusive benefits in any situation. I will elaborate on it in the context of dating and relationships. Intimacy involves two of the four chemicals of happiness (DOSE), dopamine and oxytocin. They are the drivers of feelings and happiness associated with romantic intimacy.

The chemical dopamine creates the feeling of ‘butterflies in the stomach.’ It drives new experiences, unpredictability, and feelings of achievement. The feeling of a ‘high’ is also because of a dopamine rush. Gambling, drinking, promiscuity, porn, gaming, social media, dating apps are all associated with dopamine.

We release oxytocin when we become emotionally close to someone else. When we start caring for their well-being and treat their happiness and pains as our own. The mother’s love for her child is purely oxytocin. One’s love for siblings, friends, and pets is all associated with oxytocin.

Researchers suggest that women, as the child-bearing gender, are likely biologically programmed to have higher oxytocin levels. This may also result from societal conditioning that hones their intrinsic qualities, including emotional maturity. In contrast, men generally show a higher affinity for dopamine, likely due to evolutionary roles as hunters and gatherers, activities associated with increased dopamine levels.

In case both chemicals are high, then it is the perfect situation.

In case the oxytocin is high, but the dopamine is low, which at times happens in the latter part of longer duration relationships. Invest in them as they have a high lifetime value (LTV) and spice up the relationship by more unpredictability and new experiences together. Surprising your romantic partner when they least expect it.

In case both the chemicals are low, then you need to act immediately and either get out of it or work on it proactively alongside your partner. Ensure you don’t fall into the trap of sunk cost fallacy.

Finally, if dopamine is high and the oxytocin is low, as is the case in many fleeting romances, then either build on it emotionally or just enjoy the moment and let it run its natural course. It is quite high on net present value (NPV), in case the physical intimacy component of the triangular model is synchronous.

For the majority of my dating life, I have mostly been permutation, probably because of my high affinity towards dopamine. But make sure that you and your partner are on the same page with regard to being in this quadrant, as with increased interactions, the oxytocin percentage shoots up, and you become dependent on that person. The separation won’t be pleasant in such a scenario.

That brings me to the ‘What’s in the name’ girl. The rest of the night was definitely quite high on dopamine, but I was leaving in a couple of days, so we never saw each other again. The lesser you know, higher the dopamine, I still don’t know her name. Ironically, she is not the first one. (Lead Time).

Later,

Sidhant