Gay Bar Combinatorics

[snousle]

Here's an interesting mathematical problem.

Imagine that patrons of a gay bar are either bearded (B) or shaved (S). Each person either likes beards on other men (L) or dislikes them(D). So there are four kinds of people - BL, BD, SL, and SD, all occurring at some rate. These two qualities are probably not independent of each other, nor completely correlated.

Assume that your chance of getting laid is a function of the number of people you're mutually compatible with. A BD would get along with a SL, while having only a one-way attraction with a SD or BL, and no attraction at all with another BD. And so forth, through all sixteen glorious combinations.

The question is, given the rates at which these four kinds of people attend the bar, is it an advantage for a person who likes beards to grow one, or vice versa? In other words, in order to get laid, should one become the image of what you are attracted to, even if that isn't what you would normally choose yourself? Or should you do the opposite? If large numbers of people make such a choice, does the population converge to all BL and SD over time? Maybe it could change to all BD and SL if the initial conditions were different.

It's a surprisingly complicated problem and I haven't been able to get my head around it very well. It's fortunate that sub-optimal cruising strategies are still reasonably effective.

Comments

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I'm struck by the symmetries that come out when you rearrange the order like that. That had not occurred to me.