The Games We Play

Everyone likes to play games - that is, board games and card games, not so much those of the psychological, mind variety. But inevitably we all end up pawns in a game where we end up tip-toeing around certain people or issues that could potentially end up with explosive results.

It generally is marked at a point of time and moving forward, the games commence. And so start the multitude of questions that you, the contestant, have to figure out the answers to. Is there a hidden meaning to what someone has just said? Am I meant to read between the lines? Why did they say or do that? And of course the million dollar question – Why didn’t they call me?

Lately I have been caught in a couple of cat-and-mouse games where I have had to figure out the rules and work my way up the ladder rather than sliding down a snake. More often than not, my involvement in such games resulted in me being mousetrapped either by my own fault or being dragged in by another.

After being stung in a number of such games, I decided to step back and let the games play themselves without me becoming involved in the politics, inadvertently broaching taboo topics and becoming the victim of hate. The dramas worked on my emotions and wore me down like a thunderous rapid over a rock which over time disappeared. I was exhausted, upset and down right depressed.

And of course there are the relationship games. A close girlfriend was telling me about a guy who seemed to stuff her and her emotions around. Wanting, needing and justifying his love or non-love to her was a minefield that even the Axis Powers couldn’t hope to replicate. Finally she put the power into his hands and washed her hands of his ridiculous on-again, off-again antics.

So why do we as humans have the need to play games with others? Whether it be a game with our friends or our lovers, somehow all it takes is the roll of the emotional dice and BANG, we are suddenly playing some distorted game of life. It’s baffling, tiring and immature. So why do we do it? I guess I won’t know until the games stop, if they ever do. Until then I suppose I’ll keep passing ‘GO’ and collecting $200.