Are Women Who Play Expensive More Attractive?

Women who play expensive tend to create obstacles during the process we know as flirting, or “checking”. Traditionally, people believe that this type of attitude leads to men becoming more interested, as opposed to women who are “light”, who do not generate as much interest. But is this really true?

First, let us point out that there are no fixed rules in love and relationships. You fall in love with someone without making a list of the reasons why. In the phase of flirting, however, it seems that there are certain patterns people follow over and over again. These patterns actually indicate that there is something in the fact that women who play expensive are more interesting to men, but not in all circumstances and situations.

There is, of course, research on this topic. Instead of looking for the perfect recipe to win someone’s heart, experts have examined how humans respond to certain stimuli and how relationships develop. Let’s look at what they have to say on this topic.

An old experiment about women playing expensive

In 1973, Dr. Elaine Walster of the University of Wisconsin conducted a somewhat rudimentary experiment. She wanted to know if men were more interested in women playing expensive or not.

What Walster and her colleagues did was hire a prostitute. They hoped that in this way they could gain knowledge of the subject in the most basic situations. They asked the prostitute to act randomly reluctantly towards some of her clients, and to be more loving towards others.

They discovered that men in these circumstances were less interested when the prostitute was more loving. In fact, they lost interest almost immediately.

They repeated the experiment with women from a dating agency and got similar results. The only difference was that men in this situation were more interested in women who selectively played costly, that is, those women who were reluctant to be with other men, but who were very eager to be with them.

These studies show that this subtle difference changed the appeal by playing costly. In both contexts, women were available to get closer to some men. Therefore, it was not logical for them to put obstacles in what they were looking for.

Strive and desire

Today, it may seem that society believes that the harder it is to get something, the more value it has. This fact has also emerged through social psychology: People value being part of a group more if it was difficult to gain access. Some also claim that men love a challenge.

Neuroscience also indicates that women like challenges, as it gives otherwise normal situations a touch of extra excitement.

Dr. Robert Weiss, Vice President of Elements Behavioral Health, points out that both men and women use complex and elaborate strategies to challenge their potential partner in flirting. However, the mentioned strategies are different in women and men.

Typically, women who play costly engage in behaviors such as pretending not to be interested, responding to messages hours after they were sent, and simply being unavailable from time to time. Men, on the other hand, seem to prefer to make women feel jealous.

Women who play expensive

If a person seems inaccessible, it does not always mean that they are trying to flirt. Some people can’t help but make things harder during flirting. They can behave that way because they are insecure and are afraid of being hurt. Usually the other person notices this attitude and tries to give the person space.

Furthermore, a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology indicated that the paradigm of playing expensive only works when a person is already very interested in the person playing expensive. If a person is difficult to get close to, it increases the interest, but it does not create more interest than what was already present.

Sometimes, however, there is no interest in advance. In these cases, playing expensive usually tends to demotivate the other person. No one wants to put extra effort into something they are not sure they want. In these cases, when you get close and become available, it may actually be the spark that ignites the fire.