Making an LLM "get tired" of bad conversation: the engagement-budget prompt

Follow-up to my previous post about the turn 3→4 cliff in dating-app conversations. A few people asked to see the actual prompt design. Here's one of the core pieces. The problem When you build an LLM simulated partner for practice conversations, the default failure mode is: the model is too nice. It politely continues any conversation, including ones where the user is sending increasingly generic, low-effort replies. This is a disaster for a practice tool, because the user doesn't feel the consequences of being bad at it.