Why Games don’t work

The other night I was at a Get the Guy seminar learning how to ….well, get a guy. I am somewhat sceptical about these Americanised seminars in hotels. Was I going to be expected to whoop and holler? Walk over hot coals to prove my commitment to finding true love? I rubbed my hand sorely as I recall an NLP course where I had to break through a wooden block. So I intrepidly entered a room full of women who wanted to know the answers to why they were still single or he wouldn’t commit. The anticipation was palpable. I had one hand in my lap…eating haribos. Apparently there was no canapes with this seminar.

There were women from all different backgrounds, ages and styles. I’m no stylist but immediately I was itching to get my hands on those who were drowning themselves in colours and shapes that repelled rather than attracted. How many shades of beige are there! In my sweeping analysis 80% of them were single because they clearly wanted to be and this was their big night out? A seminar with a bunch of other single women?

There was a permeating sense of desperation but determination. Note books out and pens poised. These women weren’t here to play. There were peals of nervous giggling punctuated by the lady sitting next to me with a vuvuzela laugh. She later made it onto the stage to demonstrate how not to flirt and why we were all here.

Matthew Hussey told them to have standards, self-respect and learn not take it all so seriously. Just have a strategy and stick to it. Apparently you could still have as much sex as you wanted. Well that’s what I wrote down so he must have said it, right? Hmmm…..just checked with my friends and he didn’t say that. The only other thing I think I took from it is to constantly have options and not go after one guy. Options…I can do that!

But then I thought were we really able to fix habits of a life time with a few tricks and strategies?  And why did we need to? Is love a game where the best strategist wins? And if so why are so many women losing so spectacularly?  I always say you should be talking to at least one guy a week if you want any chance of moving from single to relationship and yet when asked some of these women weren’t even doing that.

When I was a child I loved playing team sports or athletics but I didn’t play computer games. My chess was appalling and I stole money from the Monopoly bank. I had thousands. (If siblings are reading this then….yeah, that’s how I did it Bitches!!) My brothers spent hours in front of the Super Nintendo and Nintendo focussing on reaching the next level. Coaxed on by his friends they would work out ways of staying alive. My dad bought me a Donkey Kong and I immediately got bored and loaned it out to the boys I fancied in the playground. I was winning. I spent my alone time reading novels or magazines with advice columns, positions of the fortnight and make up tips that apparently weren’t for me. I still remember my parents’ faces at my attempts to recreate the Cyndi Lauper look.  Just wasn’t the same with a yellow and blue striped towel on my head.

The boys would talk computer game strategy and sport incessantly. I plotted with my friends on how to get the Saturday boy at the butcher’s shop to notice me. Turns out that if you walk past 17 times he’ll notice you but he still won’t ask you out. After this course I’m starting to think…maybe I forgot to smile?

I know women who play games and some even get the man but then you have to play all the time. And there is always the risk that he’ll substitute you if you get tired and your performance wanes. I wasn’t hearing anything about love, trust and commitmentment. Only how to get him to ask you ask and to make you his girlfried. Acting nonchalant and not showing him the crazy were the obvious answer.

Games don’t work for women because we don’t have the same game drivers. I hear about passive aggressive, manipulative women and I think how do they find the energy? We want the prize not the intricate tricks and levels you have to go through to get there. There are way too many levels and opportunities to lose a life.  But having standards you stick to and don’t compromise on…. Yes we should all play to reach that level.

Happy dating!

© Chelsea Black