THINQon : To play or not to play?

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Robin Layter, I qualify as a youth. I have long hair and it...

To play or not to play?

Latest Post: July 11, 2011 at 7:36 AM

21 followers

Why do we play games? My friend Steve would say "to make you feel inferior and find an outlet for my overly competitive nature that has no place in the real world."

Oh Steve, people like you make me shy away from invitations to play a "friendly game of scrabble." In my experience, there has never been nor will there ever be, a completely innocuous game of Scrabble (tm).

I love games. All sorts. Duck, Duck, Goose. Capture the Flag. Catch. Love Games. Game Theory. All sorts.

Games are great. They can be relaxing, laugh-inducing, educational and even sexual. (Foreplay). They are a great way to break the ice between strangers and an even better way to get to know your friends on a closer level.

And yet, there is a population amongst us who are Game Killers. They transform what started as a friendly and playful form of dialogue into a bitter battle. Whether it is something beyond their competitive nature, I don't know. But if I meet a person like this in a game setting I can't help but think less of them. They change in my eyes. So it has come to a point in my life where I stay away from games because I fear uncovering the competitive natures inside the bodies of my friends.

Games are at their best when each party enjoys seeing the other side win just as much, if not more, than himself. So perhaps schools should begin teaching courses in the art of losing. You learn more from a loss than a win anyways.

But no, I refuse to let Game Killers ruin my play. So how do I reform people? I surely can't beat them, or else the edge to destroy me only grows. But I can't lose either, it only validates their egos. Or maybe I can. Maybe I can lose game after game after game, so a Game Killer might see by my example that the fun is in the play, not the outcome.

How do we teach people like Steve that timeless cliche "winning isn't everything"?

John Stevenson tagged this post as Good basic survey.

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Bella Bendix

June 17, 2009 at 11:07 PM

4 followers

Let's say you agree to play the game. Preferably a long one. You wait until things get really tense. Then the phone rings -- by coincidence, of course, it's a third friend inviting you to a movie which starts immediately. "Great!" you say. "Let's go, we can finish this anytime." Your competitor will give you an icy stare, because of course, he can't walk away. Maybe he'll taunt you, maybe he'll get angry -- whatever, you just have to watch with a smile. A big smile. You are shocked, shocked that he really just can't do it. He's like a man possessed. What, it's not just a game for him? Come on.

Ideally, of course, you both go to the movie. If not, finish the game but you can still tease him mercilessly afterwards. It's a good way to continually bring up the topic.

It does take a certain character to pull this off and not have the person just pissed at you for days afterwards. Maybe you can put one of his dates upto it, with a few modifications -- it will throw things into sharp relief for him and hopefully provoke some soul-searching and a change for the better. :-)

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Andree Pages

July 11, 2011 at 7:36 AM

4 followers

I loved your post, but maybe "we" don't need to teach Steve anything. Maybe life, or aging itself, will blunt this need to prove oneself the best, the winner, etc, which comes from anxiety that somehow one doesn't cut the mustard. So many of us are schooled in competition, at home, at school with teams, the humiliations of being chosen last, being put in the "slower" reading group in first grade, compared to a shinier sibling, that we have to learn to let go of this, often by way of spiritual practice. As we let go, the need to prop ourselves up by proving ourselves the best simply falls away. [Ah, the rub: Easy when all are good sports, but when someone rubs their winning in my face, as well as my getting turned off by such behavior, a little voice in me sometimes pipes up: "No, you don't understand. I am spiritually more advanced than you--therefore I am the winner!" Thus mocking the illusion that I have outgrown competitive urges...]