If this sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy, that’s exactly the point. Grand Central is what Schelling calls a “focal point.” Although a focal point is an important idea in game theory, it’s more intuitive than something like the prisoner’s dilemma—so don’t worry, we’re not going to need any more of those 2 × 2 matrices. In the “game” that we’re playing—Schelling won the Nobel Prize partly for extending game theory from zero-sum games to those where players may benefit from cooperation, such as in avoiding a nuclear war—we both win if we find somewhere to meet and we both lose if we don’t.
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