Satisficing for Success

Today, I had the rare fortunate break of running into an attractive (presumably single) woman that I met at a party last weekend. On the campus of a large research university, the opportunity to have iterated social encounters with anyone outside of your department and still on the "acquaintance" level is really difficult. Grateful for the opportunity, I of course tried my hardest to convey my personality and friendliness as best I could. Of course, I probably was trying a bit too hard, as I began to stutter as my mind worked feverishly to improve every thought I was expressing, trying to make it funnier, more vivid, more creative and so forth. All of the quality control on the fly ended up harming, as opposed to helping things. On the bright side, there was a subtle market signal that the woman might be a head-case, so perhaps screwing up isn't the end of the world with this one.

The moral of the story seems to be that if you really want something, you have to convince yourself that you don't really want it so you can act accordingly. Unfortunately, the emotions of humans tend to be imperfectly and partially controlled by the rational mind. So, you get stuck with feelings and dispositions you don't really want...