Game Theory When Eating

My lightbulb finally went off today when I realized what to write my blog about when Kyle was discussing game theory in everyday life. The situation i'm going to talk about has happened to me before and i'm sure many others.

Let's say you go out to eat on business with your boss or on a FIRST date to a restaurant and you order a pizza. Once it gets to your table you realize it's smaller than you were expecting, but maybe it will be enough for the two of you. This is a very awkward moment because right now you are unsure about whether or not your boss or your date will grab the first piece before you decide to, or you are going to have to make the first move (SIMULTANEOUS DECISION MAKING). Either way, someone's hunger will beat out the other ones. Now that is only the first part of this game, though.

All of a sudden there is only one piece of pizza left and you cannot certainly take the last piece from your boss or your hot date, but you are still hungry because there was only five slices in the medium pizza anyways. So you will both sit there and play the chicken game with each other to figure out who is the weaker link. Either the other person will take the last piece because he can't handle it anymore while you still sit hungry or you will cave in. -OR- you both will lose and not take the last piece and create deadweight loss because the server will come to the table, ask if you are both finished (you will both say yes), and take the last piece of pizza away from both of you to be thrown out.

Now the story changes if you know the person you are eating with well. You can coordinate with each other when you realize that there are only five slices in the pizza and decide that the fifth one will be split amongst the two of you. This situation is much less awkward as there are no games played and everyone is at their Nash equilibrium.

Game Theory and eating can happen on many different occasions at many different places (sharing an appetizer with someone you don't really know-I never know how much to eat). But now that I know there is a name for this nonsense, I think my transition into taking the last piece of pizza will be much easier because I have a theory behind my bad manners and am simply making sure there is no deadweight loss.