Dating: How do you rate your skill at the game vs your willingness to actually participate?

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Disclaimer: This is not an advice thread. It is intended to be a light-hearted topic for current and former singles, though also with some deeper reflection about life and human nature. Feel free to make it as light or heavy as you want, but please, please kindly avoid analysing diagnosing, counselling or criticizing fellow posters. No fights. Thank you. I would be grateful if the moderators would be partial toward enforcing my request. (Please no discussion of this disclaimer.)

With the lamentably necessary flameproofing out of our way, we can move on to the proper agenda of the meeting. 😛

So:

If you’ve been in business for enough years, you can probably pride yourself in some skill at the Game (this is a derogatory term, in case you wonder). If not skill, then at least experience, awareness etc.

Chances are the more familiar you are with the workings of the Game and the better your command of the moves and tricks and your understanding of them when employed by others, the less you care to participate. Chances are you, in fact, treat the Game with quite some disdain (as do I).

… And this is in fact what I’d like us to talk about.

I will add my voice in a separate post below, to avoid turning the opener into a text wall. Don’t feel bad if you beat me to it; go ahead and post before me if you want. 😉
 
Harumph…back in my day a guy asked a girl out and went out and had a nice time…

Kids today with all their Game and whatnot…hmph…
 
So, regarding yours truly. I would rate my skill as considerable, and my willingness to participate as not quite.

In fact, it’s quite possible that, by now, due to my lack of willingness to play, my skills may be rather rusty from disuse (apart from the same skills that I use at work in any case). Still, my passive skills (‘BS detector’ etc.) are sharp, oh sharp are they! 😃

So, quite often when I see another chance-met lady for a non-date, I am inevitably immediately aware, often before she is, when she embarks on the Game.

In fact, the whole thing came to my mind precisely because I’ve caught myself discussing these cases with my friends in terms similar to: ‘Eh, she doesn’t have a third of my own skill, but she’s trying to play me.’ And obviously that makes me feel rather languorous and battle-weary. And reminds me most painfully that I’m no longer 18 (for all the silliness I am still occasionally guilty of).

My Game days are over. I’ll spare you the bragging of epic achievements (unless you really insist), worthy of a Hollywood production, but I just don’t care for the Game.

I sometimes make a point of staying away from persuasion techniques on purpose, and in the last stages of my brief legal career I took care to avoid inflicting my personal charms on the poor clerks when simply meaning business. I disdained the whole thing already back then. Still do, with even more passion. It’s dishonest, it’s short-lasting, and it’s a waste of resources compared to open, unrestricted communication that actually gets things done and with optimal results.

So I recognize the Game when people start playing it, to my great disappointment (sometimes both at their willingness to play it and the lack of skill displayed). Most of the time I pretend not to realize; I just play along and act like I don’t even suspect anything, provide them with the information they seek, making sure it’s true and complete. I don’t return the courtesy by probing them in similar fashion. I might, of course, sometimes confront them after a critical blunder, but that’s rare; one has to work hard to earn the dubious pleasure. But when I do, it’s white gloves coming off. Not even a nod of head to the Game, just plain statement of factual inconsistencies or inconsistency between words and deeds, and no hiding of my feelings on the matter:

‘So allow me to set the record straight. Five minutes ago you said we were just friends, and now you are rubbing your foot against my shin as we talk. Is that right?’

Like I said, not even a pretence, not even lip service to the Game. It bores me the more, the easier it seems to play. And yes, this does mean I do sometimes still play it, though reluctantly and consider it a lifehack. I may appreciate the practical benefit in preserving an opportunity for conversation that would otherwise be lost, or tampering a little with who gets seated were at an event, just to assist my luck a bit. Or I could tease just a little perhaps, usually out of habit or to avoid losing someone’s interest too early, nothing of the sort that would actually be dishonest and deprive anyone of informed choice in the long term. In fact, I turn to exact the informed choice from them and accept nothing less. The Game is so thoroughly meh it’s just boring. Hence I hate it.

Therefore considering myself a skilled player, I hate the Game itself. I can’t speak of it without disdain. What about you folks?
 
TechieGuy said:
Harumph…back in my day a guy asked a girl out and went out and had a nice time…

Kids today with all their Game and whatnot…hmph…
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If your day was a couple of decades ago, I’m pretty sure the Victorian game of petit-bourgeois propriety was still alive and kicking. It didn’t even die before my time. I occasionally still witness someone pulling a move or two from that repertoire.
 
Game? What game? I never dated anyone and thought of it as a game. Two people, a guy and a girl, date, and get to know each other.

Ed
 
I’m now happily married, so its a moot point…but I was terrible at the “Game”. I was excellent at making women friends, but terrible at knowing when and having the courage to make any sort of move. Thankfully I got over that when it came to the woman who became my wife…but in the decade or so of “dating age” I had before marriage, I only had two or three romantic relationships. It seems most people date an army of people before finding “the one”…must be exhausting.
 
twf said:
I’m now happily married, so its a moot point…but I was terrible at the “Game”. I was excellent at making women friends, but terrible at knowing when and having the courage to make any sort of move. Thankfully I got over that when it came to the woman who became my wife…but in the decade or so of “dating age” I had before marriage, I only had two or three romantic relationships. It seems most people date an army of people before finding “the one”…must be exhausting.
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You sound just like me. I’m terrible at dating but good at making women friends. You give me hope!😃
 
edwest2 said:
Game? What game? I never dated anyone and thought of it as a game. Two people, a guy and a girl, date, and get to know each other.

Ed
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Heck just 15 years ago that was how you did it. I asked my now wife out, we went on a date, had a good time at a movie and some talking during and after. Then we went on a second, date, third, etc…

There was no game involved other than the baseball games I occasionally took her to.
 
XndrK said:
I just exempted myself from the “Game” completely.
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I am “exempt” as well. LOL. I have a decree of nullity for my divorce. I dated three super nice and fun guys from Catholic Match.com. It had a different name then.

All were potentially a good fit with me but I had two kids and was a single mother so I did not have the ability to move to another location. All three men were one to two hours away with careers they enjoyed and also did not want to move.

I enjoyed that time greatly because it was nice to be treated with respect by these nice Catholic guys after my failed marriage.

I ended up with a dear friend I have had for 8 years instead. I do not feel “called” to marriage again.

Happy dating all you out there in the “game.”

Mary.
 
twf said:
I’m now happily married, so its a moot point…but I was terrible at the “Game”. I was excellent at making women friends, but terrible at knowing when and having the courage to make any sort of move. Thankfully I got over that when it came to the woman who became my wife…but in the decade or so of “dating age” I had before marriage, I only had two or three romantic relationships. It seems most people date an army of people before finding “the one”…must be exhausting.
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I, too, have been thoroughly married, in my case for 47 years. If, God forbid, something should happen to my wife, there would be no dating, no “game”, not even any thoughts of remarriage. I am far removed from relationship-building that I seriously doubt I have any skills, and I can’t see any benefit from putting myself through that again.
 
It’s not a game. Which is why some people are STILL single.
Been in jest, it’s not great to even call it a game for arguments’ sake.
You don’t treat people and relationships that way.
Why does this take SO LONG to figure out? :confused:
 
I think people define “The Game” wrong. The goal of The Game is not to be good at dating. What does that even mean? If you have had a lot of relationships and still aren’t married, I’d say you’re terrible at dating.

In the last season of the TV show “How I Met Your Mother” a character asked Barney Stinson (a notorious womanizer who had literally written the playbook for “The Game”), “About the Game, do you want to keep playing forever, or do you want to win?”

That question motivates him to propose to his significant other, and they get married.

My wife and I both dated one other person before each other. We dated for one month and got married, and we’ve been married for fourteen years. I’d say we were awesome at the Game.
 
I won the Gold way back in 1981, retired and have lived happily ever since:)
 
pianistclare said:
It’s not a game. Which is why some people are STILL single.
Been in jest, it’s not great to even call it a game for arguments’ sake.
You don’t treat people and relationships that way.
Why does this take SO LONG to figure out? :confused:
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The answer is a bannable (?) offense…suffice it to say it helps keep the gene pool strong!
 
I refuse to play the “game”. Have refused for many years. The game is stupid and hurtful. I never liked being treated that way and I won’t treat anyone else that way.

I’m still open to marriage but I believe marriage is not God’s will for my life now.
 
I don’t play the “game”. Only “courtship” interests me, and if the other person shows the slightest indication of playing a “game”, I’m out.
 
Marriage is too important in order to play “the game”. Count me out.

My heart aches when I am rejected, but I am still hoping and praying that my last crush will come to a happy issue.

When “the game” is played, one is playing with people’s hearts…and with the Wicked One. Instead, follow the path to holiness, and seek the King’s will in all things.
 
chevalier said:
If your day was a couple of decades ago, I’m pretty sure the Victorian game of petit-bourgeois propriety was still alive and kicking. It didn’t even die before my time. I occasionally still witness someone pulling a move or two from that repertoire.
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Oh, is that what it was?

Here I was thinking it was two people enjoying each other’s company…
 
This is what Kramer from Seinfeld would call ‘the timeless art of seduction.’
 
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