Why we play games…

Why do we play games?Because we have to; that’s the straight forward answer. The game is society’s way of coping with the fact that we are different…

At the core of our struggle is the gender difference that we have to overcome. Let’s face it: men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti. Ok, I’m done with the cliche’s for now, but the reality is that we really do think differently. Girls would go shopping every day if they could. They would talk about it, share ideas with their friends, try out stuff… and the fun keeps on going.  I know of few guys who genuinely enjoy that. On the other hand, a lot of guys enjoy sports (whether real or virtual) and could spend days on end playing, aham… working. This is real work. You have your tomboy girls and your metro guys, but at the end of the day these outliers don’t change the reality we know it’s there. These exceptions just shows the importance of the rule.

So why do we play games? We play games because we have to. It’s a way of learning how “the other person” works. We react differently to life and we live life differently. We think differently and we feel differently, and that vastly influences our relationships.

Much of the game is just learning how the other person operates. They are not you, they are not like you (and that’s probably good, haha), and a lot of intrigue an mystery comes from that. All cool stuff, but it comes witha  cost. At the end of the day what we really want is to be understood and appreciated for who we really. That is really hard to do with somebody who’s not like you. They communicate differently. They perceive appreciation differently. They things that trigger your heart may not work for them and vice-versa.

So how do we cope with this? We play our games. And that’s ok. It’s how we get along, how we learn each other, how we learn to interact with the other person without forgoing who we are, without changing them to be like us either.

I know a lot of people don’t like the name “game”. It sounds too… mischievous. Call it what you may: dating, getting to know each other… whatever. It doesn’t change what it is: a way of learning how to develop a meaningful relationship with that “significant other”. That’s what we really want, isn’t it?