Matters of Love and Hyperbolic Discounting
If I ask which would you rather have: 100 pesos *now* or 500 pesos *after 6 months*, which pay-off would you choose? Research says that, given a similar situation, most people would take the former; people generally prefer smaller, earlier rewards to larger, later rewards. In behavioral economics this is called hyperbolic discounting, or how the future’s utility is ‘discounted’ in favor of a sooner prize. It’s an irrationality unlike the usual thinking of homo economicus.
Now I wonder how this figures in human relationships. If I am to translate hyperbolic discounting into its social equivalent then it would go this way: People should be going for the easy way into relationships, rather than wait for their one true love 15 years from now. It’s an irrationality that should have more proponents but, well, it simply is not that way.
People can wait.
As to why this is the case might be a personal inquiry. I can only say that maybe this is one example where to love is to be, truly, rational.
