Amit Kumar

I felt that it had been a little too long since I had seen my family.

I wasn't yet comfortable getting on an airplane, though.

And so I cautiously kind of decided that it would be worth it to drive from Texas to where I grew up, where my parents are in New Jersey, in order to see them.

But this travel did have me passing through several cities that I might not otherwise visit.

And in fact, I was aware of the fact that this old friend of mine from grad school, Jen, happened to be living in one such city that was near the route that I was on.

I hadn't talked to her myself in years.

She didn't know that I would be driving through.

I didn't give her advance notice.

I thought maybe, you know, that's not very courteous to just show up and tell someone you're around.

I also thought about, of course, you know, she might wonder how I knew what was going on in her life, even though we hadn't been in touch with each other.

And so maybe she'd wonder how I even knew about her relationship troubles.

How uncomfortable might that be?

I think the language that economists use can actually be somewhat helpful here, even though we're talking about these everyday interactions where one could be kind to another person and and and

Economists talk about things like expected utility, that they'll tell you that wise decisions are guided by an accurate assessment of the expected value of a given action.

And so what we're often thinking about is our expectations, and we've got expectations of both costs and benefits.

You know, there's potential costs that come with any interaction.

It could be awkward.

It could be uncomfortable.

It could seem weird.

You could be rejected.