"It would be awfully convenient networking for me to stick around for a bit after our meeting to talk with you and [the next person you're meeting with]. But on a scale of one to ten, it's only about 3 useful to me. If you'd rate the loss of utility for you as two or higher, then I have a strong preference for not sticking around." 

I think it would be much harder for someone to rate their loss of utility with the information of yours than without, because most people would take into account not pleasing you in their loss of utility, and probably rate it too high even if you said it's a 3.

If I were you, I would: 

• Calculate the usefulness of staying (3) 
• then ask "What is your loss of utility for me sticking around after the meeting?"
• Which would lead to the most honest answer, and probably the question "why are you asking me this ?"
• Then I pre-commit my decision of leaving or staying and explain the reason of the initial question (I want to network)

• Then only my interlocutor can change their mind on their initial rating.

   I believe this process is closer to zeroing out

I feel this post explained a lot of my behavior that I did not understand before. When I was starting to read it I felt like "Oh, I need to uncover what is the truth immediately!". Then you explain it is not the right thing to do at all and your logic seems correct to me. 

I like the idea that maybe we all have much greater understanding of ourselves than we think, and we could "unlock" that understanding by pushing, but we should not.

I will meditate on ways that could possibly help me and hopefully some of my problems will solve themselves more easily than I thought.