In the intricate world of dating and romance, one question has perplexed individuals for ages: should you play hard to get? It’s a strategy that has been both praised and criticised, with advocates claiming it creates intrigue and opponents claiming it’s manipulative.
Playing hard to get essentially involves creating an air of mystery and a sense of unavailability. It’s about maintaining a certain level of distance and aloofness to pique the interest of your potential romantic partner. The underlying idea is that by making yourself seemingly unattainable, you increase your desirability.
In modern-day dating, you can play hard to get by simply not replying to a person’s message, which can be known as ghosting, or simply acting not interested in a person.
Tinder recently released ‘The Future of Dating’, which shows how many people still actually adopt this tactic in modern-day dating.
According to the world’s most popular dating app, dating games are not for the Gen Z generation.
Their latest survey stated that 18-25-year-olds are 32% less likely to ghost someone than those over 33.
When it comes to messaging someone for the first time, sometimes playing hard to get can be a method that is accidentally adopted. Generally, we are unsure of how quickly to reply to someone. How soon is too soon? Or how long can you leave it before it starts to seem like you’re uninterested?
The survey found that 77% of Tinder members reply to a match within 30 minutes, 40% respond within five minutes and over a third reply immediately. Evidently, Gen Z are eager beavers when it comes to responding to messages.
This is further reinforced when comparing how millennials viewed dating 10 years ago.
Almost three in four 33 to 38-year-olds (73%) agreed that playing ‘games’ within dating were all accepted as “normal” when they were between 18-25 years old.
The importance of communication within modern-day relationships is clearly key, and it’s something that Gen Z are at the forefront of. This generation is changing the way we date. Modern-day dating is moving away from playing hard to get and becoming more open with the need to be more open when getting to know someone.