If we were to apply micro and behavioural economics, this is how it would translate to the dating and relationship market, and how it is going to affect you:

1) Incentives Drive Behaviour

Economics: People respond to incentives (financial, social, moral).

Dating and Relationships: Attraction often isn’t just about romance; people look for security, status, companionship, or adventure. The “incentives” of a relationship shape who we choose and how we behave.

Lesson: Ask yourself what their real incentives are to get what you want, if the outcome matters more than your process.

2) Hidden Motives Matter

Economics: The reasons people give are often different from the real reasons. Dating and Relationships: Someone will say they’re looking for “their forever person,” but their real driver is wanting stability, validation, or even pressure from family and friends.

Lesson: Look beyond words. People aren’t fully aware or honest about why they date. Pay attention to actions and patterns, not just stated intentions. This is what a lot of people miss (especially desperate women), thinking just because someone says they seek something, it is what they mean.

3) Information Asymmetry

Economics: When one party knows more than the other, they gain power (like real estate agents knowing more than sellers).

Dating and Relationships: On dating apps, one person will curate their image with filters and carefully worded bios, while the other is left guessing what’s real. Whoever has clearer insight “controls the deal.”

Lesson: Collect more information about someone to know who you are dealing with, and odds are, she will fit the pre-determined box on how you need to operate with them.

4) Unintended Consequences

Economics: Policies often have side effects. For example, monetary policy tightening, especially via balance sheet reduction (QT), can backfire if liquidity is withdrawn too quickly, interest rates rise too rapidly, or markets misinterpret intentions. The key is calibration, especially after a quantitative buffet. Market Players will overreact, a downstream effect of the overcorrection.

Dating and Relationships: Women who play “hard to get” expect to increase attraction, but will push away genuinely good matches while attracting only those who like the “pump and dump” approach. Likewise, for Guys, overgaming or playing too dismissively will bite you in the ass. Distorting what is Your Median agreed SMV with what you want to achieve, aka artificially propping it up, will only give superficial results, if any.

Lesson: Be careful with “strategies.”. Playing games (e.g., being hard to get, withholding affection) will work in the short term, but in the long term, trying to micromanage interactions will yield the opposite effect of what was intended, because people will see through it. The same as with (monetary) policy planners who try to avoid the invisible hand of the free market.

5) The Role of Numbers

Economics: Statistics reveal hidden patterns.

Dating and Relationships: In online dating, success scales with numbers: sending more messages, optimising photos, or choosing popular platforms statistically increases matches, even if “quality” feels random.

Lesson: Exposure matters. Meeting more people increases your chances, but quantity without clarity leads to a lack of quality because of a lack of personal visibility. Otherwise, you will find yourself in the conundrum of people in big cities with the “paradox of choice”, meaning that too many options will reduce satisfaction for people looking for something serious.

6) Cheating the System

Economics: People cheat when the incentives outweigh the risks.

Dating and Relationships: Ghosting, double-dating, or lying about age or income are ways people “game” the dating market to maximise short-term benefit. Why? Because the “cost” of cheating is low (no accountability) and the potential reward (more options, less awkwardness) is high. But like in economics, cheating corrodes trust in the system as a whole.

Lesson: Shortcuts (lying, ghosting, hiding double lives) may bring quick wins, but they erode trust and long-term satisfaction. If you are using this and want something long-term, ensure the other person is invested enough that they will overlook what they were lied to about. Sunk Loss Fallacy will do the rest. Otherwise, be authentic; it will save you some headaches and multiple lines of lying, which you will need to make sense until you know they are properly hooked.

7) Correlation ≠ Causation

Economics: Just because two things move together doesn’t mean one causes the other.

Dating and Relationships: It is not because two yuppies get together that men like boss babes's attitude, it just happens that for long-term relationships, people usually go with people with the same socio-economic hierarchy, less out of attraction but more out of reason. Women will then think that to attract someone equally yoked, they have to display these traits, when it is just their upbringing, education level, income bracket and status that will lead to that association. In fact, adopting this behaviour will most likely decrease her baseline odds.

Lesson: Don’t confuse surface patterns with more profound truths. Just because happy couples share a hobby or income level doesn’t mean that’s why they work.

8) The Power of Branding

Economics: Names, reputations, and signals will carry hidden economic and social weight.

Dating and Relationships: Just like a “brand,” how someone presents themselves (their style, swagger, even their social circle) strongly influences first impressions before personality even comes into play.

Lesson: Your Personal Brand will fast-track your results. The stronger it is, the fewer objections and hurdles you will face. People buy Apple because of its brand value.

9) Markets and Matching

Economics: Many social behaviours work like markets: buyers, sellers, supply, and demand.

Dating and Relationships: In cities with an oversupply of one gender (say, more men than women), the dynamics shift; scarcity raises the “value” of the fewer participants, affecting how relationships form and how long they last. Dating apps exaggerate this market effect, giving people the illusion of infinite choice, which can lower commitment. On the other hand, smaller communities limit choice but often foster stronger bonds because people value the scarcity of options.

Lesson: In some environments, options are abundant but shallow (apps, big cities); in others, they’re limited but deep (small communities, shared networks). Adapt your strategy to the “market” you’re in.