Hello G@G community,
I am researching on one of the crucial topic of Dating.
In decision theory / optimal control, there is a game called the classic secretary problem.
The basic idea is as follows:
You will be presented with 100 romantic prospects, in sequence.
Upon being presented with each candidate, you can decide Yes or No.
If Yes that is your permanent choice and the game is over. If No you get to see the next candidate. However, once you have rejected a candidate, you can't go back; once you've rejected a prospect, you can't return to it.
Assumption
The attractiveness of the 100 prospects is random such that the every prospect has an (ex-ante) equal chance of being the best.
Given all of this, what is the right strategy for optimizing your probability of finding the best prospect.
The correct answer is to:
(1) wait to see 37 different candidates (if nn is the number of prospects, as n ➡ ∞ the optimal sampling size goes to n/e , without deciding Yes to any of them and then
(2) say Yes to the next candidate who is better looking than any of the prior ones you've seen.
In any event, the point here is not to suggest that dating or romance or marriage should been turned into a cold science but rather to shed insight into human choices involving search where important options are presented to you serially. This is actually a better game for thinking about a decision like buying a house or taking a job. You should take the first 3 or 4 months to just browse.
But I think it's moderately useful for thinking about dating people vs. deciding to get married.
Thanks for constructive criticism.
Have a great life ahead. 😊🇮🇳
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