According to psychologists, playing hard-to-get can be an effective technique for gaining and keeping

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The idea of "playing hard to get", which I interpret as a style of flirting meant to increase the significance of the individual by increasing the effort in the "chase", has been only presented in a few studies. One study which was quite interesting and provided many new insights on this subject was conducted by Walster, Walster, Piliavin and Schmidt (1973), in their study they conducted five experiments, all of which failed! They had the same hypothesis as I proposed, that a woman who is hard to get to go out on a date would be more valued by a man, rather than a woman who is easy to get. This was not true due to the fact that men simply get frustrated with these types of women, and do not want to waste their time on a woman who does not show the same interest that they have in them. What they found instead was that men were highly attracted to a woman who was hard to get for other men, but easy to get for them. What I interpreted from their results was that when a woman shows interest in a particular man, he will reciprocate those feelings for her if he knows that she has other options, in terms of other potential romantic partners. This makes her more desirable for the man. Walster, Walster, and Berscheid (1971) showed in their results that the act of playing hard to get was not an effective strategy for increasing one’s status. My understanding of their results was that people like people who like them; this is simple and shouldn’t be complicated further by playing games such as hard to get. What is meant by playing games is ignoring the other person, trying to call them as minimal as possible, and basically showing little, if any interest at all. This merely pushes the other person away,

According to psychologists, playing hard-to-get can be an effective technique for gaining and keeping someone's attention; however, it should be played with caution and discretion.

Peter Ditto, an associate professor of psychology, says playing hard-to-get is like advertising.

"Advertisers use the same technique all the time," he says. "They'll say something like 'one time only' because they want people to think that if a product is harder to get, it must be a more rare commodity."

The best way for people to advertise themselves is to never make themselves too available, says Carrie Hoffman, a senior early childhood education major and McCauley's off-and-on girlfriend of two years.

"I would never just go up to somebody and say, 'I want your phone number,'" she said. "I don't care if he is Mr. G.Q. man I just wouldn't do it."

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She says her mother always told her not to chase.

"I can still hear her voice ringing in my head, saying 'If he wants to talk to you, he'll call you,'" Hoffman adds.

If she actually does call a guy (usually McCauley), she waits as long as she can to do it. She doesn't want to seem like an "eager beaver."

McCauley uses the "keeping busy technique" to play the game.

When he knows that Hoffman might be calling or that he should be calling her, he often goes out with his friends or works on his cars.

"Being busy ...

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She says her mother always told her not to chase.

"I can still hear her voice ringing in my head, saying 'If he wants to talk to you, he'll call you,'" Hoffman adds.

If she actually does call a guy (usually McCauley), she waits as long as she can to do it. She doesn't want to seem like an "eager beaver."

McCauley uses the "keeping busy technique" to play the game.

When he knows that Hoffman might be calling or that he should be calling her, he often goes out with his friends or works on his cars.

"Being busy is the best way to play the game," he says. "If you know a lot of people and have a lot of things to do, you can always come up with something."

But why do they go through all the trouble of coming up with schemes and holding back their true feelings?

Some say it's a good way for each of them to measure how much the other is still interested.

"Playing hard-to-get can be described as a game with the purpose of uncovering what the other person has to offer," says Adam Hill, a teaching fellow in the Counseling and Human Development Center.

And if someone is not very interested in the other, research shows that playing the game can change his or her mind, Ditto points out.

"There's something called the reactance theory," he explains. "And it says that when people think they can't have something, they want it even more."

He adds that when people put a lot of effort into doing something, they tend to think up some sort of justification so they know it was worth it.

"That's the cognitive dissonance theory," Ditto says. "It explains that when people work hard for something, they don't want to think that they did it all for nothing."

Yes, the game can work, Ditto says. But it usually only tends to work for the short term.

"It can help spark initial attraction," he says. "But I think it's ultimately ineffective for a long-term relationship."

Playing the game might be OK at first, but it shouldn't last very long, says junior nursing major Jennifer Mowery.

"Once you're comfortable with the person and you can start building on your relationship, it's time for the whole challenge deal to be over with," she says.

Jennifer Paskey, a senior secondary education major, says when she and her boyfriend, Rich, starting dating 2 1/2 years ago, she played a little of the hard-to-get game.

"I acted like I wasn't as excited as I really was when he called," she says. "I didn't push him aside, but I didn't want to act like I was dropping everything for him."

After they had been dating a while and were comfortable with each other, Paskey asked him what he thought when she did that.

"He said he thought it was kind of rude, but he could look past it," she says. "Now, I don't think it should be done, either. I think you should just be yourself."

She says she thinks playing hard-to-get can be a bit deceptive.

But not everyone thinks so.

Senior business major Kim Wanski said she likes to play the game with her boyfriend, Todd.

"You have to keep a bit of mystery in the relationship," she says. "Otherwise, people might take each other for granted, and it gets boring."

McCauley says he and Hoffman play the game all the time, not to be deceptive, but just to keep the relationship exciting.

"It's like a necessary evil that's essential to the relationship," he says. "I don't enjoy playing the game or get any thrills out of it, but when we aren't challenged by each other, things can go downhill overnight."

Hoffman agrees. She says she and McCauley are the type of people who can't bear the thought of getting into a routine.

"We have to keep that element of surprise and guessing there," she says. "Kirk and I never get bored with each other because there's always a challenge there."

So they always wait a while before they call each other back and make sure that they're not too accessible for each other.

Of course, they have been dating OFF-AND-ON for two years now.

But many people play hard-to-get when they first meet someone, and they don't know if the person is interested at all.

That's when they have to be careful, Hill says.

"It's safe to say that playing hard-to-get works, but be careful about what it works at doing," he advises. "It may work at pissing off the person you're trying to attract."

Mowery says the plan has backfired on her in the past.

"It works sometimes," she says. "But sometimes, the guy just thinks, 'Oh screw her! She doesn't like me.'"

There has to be some indication that the person is interested for the game to work, Ditto says.

"You need to have some basis of attraction before playing hard-to-get works," he says. "More often than not, people tend to think that if someone is mean to them, they're not interested."

He says that simply being nice is the best way to go.

"To be nice to people is invariably the best way to show them that you like them," Ditto says. "And people tend to like people who like them."

Even though McCauley plays hard-to-get with Hoffman now, he thinks it's very risky to play it when first meeting someone.

"It's hard enough to meet the right people in college," he says. "So I don't think you should play games at the start. Who knows what you could miss out on."

Jean Tarbett is a junior magazine journalism major. She's not telling whether she plays hard to get.

Many men think about and fantasize about the other side of the fence – if only in passing,” Dr. Phil says. They will express more interest in a woman they cannot take for granted. Another way this shows up in relationships is, “Territoriality and competitiveness will often kick in if another man begins to show interest in a woman they may have previously lost interest in.”

Girls do it all the time — they make boys chase them. It’s fun to give the object of your affection a short brief run, just to pique his curiosity and test his energy levels. Guys like to chase women and we like to play hard to get. It just makes our nerves tingle to blow hot and blow cold and despite what they say, up to a point, men like it too.

Ignore Him

It’s a proven fact and you don’t need psychiatrists and counsellors telling you this: Men don’t think too highly of women who fall quick and easy. The chase builds up the sexual chemistry between the two sexes. Says Akanksha, a 30-year-old housewife, “I think men like it when women play hard to get. My husband admitted after marriage that he found my cool indifference very intriguing. He was the popular guy in college and I just ignored his very existence. Of course that was just pretence. He was the first thing I noticed when I walked into class. The best way to get him to notice me was to ignore him.” It certainly worked for Akanksha as her blase attitude had the man in a tizzy.

Let My Man Chase Me
It’s the most tried and tested formula in the world. We crave the thing that’s not easily available. Archie always longs for the not-so-available Veronica instead of the ever-ready, ever-willing Betty. So who are you going to be?

“Definitely Veronica. It’s stupid to let men think that you are theirs for the picking. I would definitely make my man chase me, just to spice it up,” says Rachna, 26, a writer with a dotcom. Pooja, 30, a chartered accountant with a New Delhi-based MNC, says, “My husband was the Casanova in college. Just to irritate him, I played hard to get. I was just trying to prove a point — that not every girl is an easy catch. Somewhere along the way, Cupid struck.” They married after a seven-year courtship.

Don't Go Too Far Playing The I-Don't Care-Game
Rachna and Pooja aren’t exceptions. Most young women today say that they would like the guy to woo them, pursue and try to win them over.

The fun of the game lies in pretending to be totally disinterested when you are actually hoping madly that the object of your affection will come over to talk to you.

But when was the last time you heard of Adam running a marathon to catch Eve? So don’t make your resistance a long drawn out affair. The trick lies in using the technique for just the right length of time — you need to know when to draw the line. A very fine one divides success from failure. “I went too far playing the I-don’t-care game. After chasing me for quite a while he gave up and found someone else. Having lost him I didn’t know how to tell him that I cared without really looking stupid,” says Sonia, a 35-year-old teacher in a Calcutta school. Now happily married, she feels sad when reminded of her college days. “I didn’t repeat the same mistake with my husband whom I met at work,” she adds.

Ananya, a 25-year-old copywriter with a Hyderabad advertising agency, had an I’m-not-available attitude from the very first day in college. She had hoped it would send the guys mad trying to win her over, but quite the reverse happened. Almost all of them ignored her and just considered her to be too snooty and proud. Consequently, by the end of the first year, she had very few friends and no boyfriends. “When most people get nostalgic about college days, I have nothing to say. What is the greatest time for most people, was a nightmare for me and it was all my own fault.” Today, she is a very different person and isn’t making the mistakes of her college days.

If it backfired for Ananya and many others, men too don’t like women who play too hard to get. “It’s really irritating when a girl just puts up an act of indifference. Men can usually see through it. We aren’t as foolish as women think us to be,” says Siddharth, a copywriter with a leading ad agency. He’s of the opinion that women should quit “such stupid mind games which did well in Victorian times”, and be direct and open. But then don’t they get the wrong opinion? “We aren’t asking you to jump into our arms. Just say yes when you feel like it, instead of making lame excuses like I-have-a-dentist’s-appointment when we ask you out.” Point noted.

Being ‘unavailable’ is pretty much like flirting. Unless you’re able to do it the right way, it’s bound to boomerang badly.

So How Do You Learn To Do It The Right Way?
Trust your gut instinct. And to a small extent, by trial and error. And remember — you’re going to win some and lose some. But don’t lose heart, have fun.