The games we play

We’re taught when we’re young to play games. Playing games when you’re a child is a good indicator of social success but playing games when you’re older? Pointless. Heart-wrenching. Anxiety inducing. 

Playing games stops us from asking the questions we really want answers to. 

“Do you like me? Like, really like me?” is probably one of the most impossible questions to ask.

Why? Because if they say “no” we feel like we’ve been hit by a bus. Rejection is horrible. And so we skirt around the topic and we let the games begin.

I met up for a coffee with a good friend and mentor. She is incredibly accomplished and intelligent - she has had beautiful pieces of writing snapped up by some of the world’s most reputable publications.

But yesterday she sat in front of me, sipping a coffee and detailing a recent experience with a man. She was diminished to this almost adolescent behaviour of playing games, not knowing where she stands, whether she’s desired or already forgotten. It’s eating her up inside, making her anxious and worried. 

But when I said: “Do you feel like you can just ask him how he feels?”, she looked at me at if I’d asked her to remove all her clothing in the middle of the cafe.

She said: “I can’t ask him THAT! I’ll look desperate and he’ll not want to see me again!”

We spend our lives trying to be authentic and when we have an opportunity to do it in the name of romance and solid relationships, we run, cowering.

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff has said, “Playing games is essentially about pretending not to care and trying not to look too easy, available, eager, or interested."

So it can be said that we believe that if we put our true selves out there, our potential love interest will run for the hills. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Why would we want to show someone who we may end up spending a lot of years with, anything other than our true selves?

We are a strange beast, don’t you think?