x: How unique the thing in me is
y: How uniquely well the thing in the other person fits the thing in me (this is probably more strongly sensed emotionally)
Examples:
- The existence of my attraction to smart girls: x is low, y is how smart
- My sense of humor: x is high, y depends on how well our humor fits together and how much the other person enjoys my humor
If there's nothing with both high x and high y for a person, then you need to continue focusing on exploration if you're looking for a good match (definitely when looking for future spouse, and maybe some cases of being unsatisfied with platonic friends)
Things with low x can be nice to have. It seems like emotion alone is what can be used for figuring out how they should affect decisions, but I would be interested in something better than emotion alone for this if the resulting process is improved for some people. I think emotion can't be completely removed from this.
I'm thinking out loud a lot with this one