Why the Hard-to-Get Are So Very Hard to Get
For many people, there’s no one as attractive as the one who always seems just out of reach. Even though the person you’re with now never holds back on affection or concern, there may have been at least one romantic partner in your past who captivated you by his or her apparent disinterest in you. It may be that the hard-to-get trigger your inner competitive drives, causing you to feel you have to go all out in order to win them over. It’s also possible that the air of mystery they project stimulates your own need to figure out them out, just as you want to solve a complex puzzle. The hard-to-get may also seem to fit the economic laws of supply and demand. Just as the latest electronic gadget is that much more valuable when only limited quantities hit the market, the affection of the person who’s hard-to-get becomes that much more highly prized.
In a newly-published dissertation, Adelphi University’s Kirby Weinberg put the hard-to-get to the test in order to learn what leads to their emotionally withholding tendencies. Starting with the definition of the hard-to-get as using “a mating strategy in which people feign disinterest to get others to desire them more” (p. 2). Weinberg concluded from the existing published literature that this is a strategy that actually works well, but only in the short term. The personality traits that drive this version of the dating game are not all that desirable in long-term partners. Such individuals can be cold, manipulative, narcissistically entitled, less likable, and actually not that interested in truly intimate relationships. Playing hard-to-get, she notes, is also associated with lacking the ability to be authentic with others, and even with oneself. Digging deeper, the hard-to-get may also be insecurely (feeling afraid to get close or preferring to remain distant), driven by a desire to punishothers, and unwilling to show their true selves.
Weinberg, whose work was conducted from within a psychodynamic framework, believes that the hard-to-get are playing at the classic defensive strategy of pushing others aside to cover up the fact that they feel deeply flawed. As she notes, “If playing hard-to-get is an expression of inauthenticity and inauthenticity is associated with negative traits, then playing hard-to-get might not be such a good thing” (p. 5). High in the quality of rejection sensitivity, or extreme touchiness about being rebuffed, the hard-to-get protect themselves from their “anxiety about desertion, humiliation, and betrayal” (p. 14), perhaps related to constant fear of rejection by withholding parents. They may also be high in the type of narcissism that leads them to seek personal gains and avoid emotional intimacy in relationships. Weinberg states that, “Perhaps the false front that playing hard to get calls for is what is most appealing to pathological narcissists and is what drives them to utilize the strategy” (p. 19).
To test these proposals, Weinberg used a technique known as “mindset priming,” in which she subtly planted in her participants beliefs about authenticity in relationships designed to appeal differentially to people prone to playing the hard-to-get game. Participants read one of two paragraphs that summarized a fictitious research study supporting either authenticity or inauthenticity as better for relationships. The prime for authenticity contained information stating that people in the best romantic relationships felt free to be themselves. The inauthenticity prime fabricated a research finding showing that people who were romantically most satisfied “hide their neediness and dependency” (p. 30). The theory was that people high in narcissism, the insecurely attached, and those high in rejection sensitivity (fear of being rebuffed) would be more likely to advocate playing hard-to-get in the inauthenticity prime condition. Their better-adjusted opposites would be more susceptible to the authentic mind set therefore be less likely to favor playing hard-to-get.
By Olonade Olawale (Brain Feels)
