[saiya-jin]

Yeah serious relationships are not a 'game' and shouldn't be approached as such. Otherwise you bring very wrong incentives and mindset into interaction (relationship) that shouldn't be there if you actually seek high quality long term stable one. There are only few setups/recipes for such result, they all look very similar and this is not the way. Also if you find somebody with properly good heart and you are not pulling your weight between you both, they will eventually notice and act accordingly.

I know it sounds trivial and automatic, but I've met surprisingly few such couples. And all those questions of 'what did I do wrong' have an answer, usually quite a few (and on both sides, but its never 50:50 guilt).

[jvanderbot]

"Game" here refers to "model of human interaction for outside parties" not "ignore your emotional connection and try to 'win' using these few tricks!".

Game theory is not a suitable guide to finding a romantic partner. I'm applying it retrospectively, to attempt to explain some otherwise sensible dating advice, just like TFA did.