play time

Games are supposed to be fun, a good hearty game of Scrabble, a group full of crazy kids playing drunken Jenga, trying to figure out the rules to Cranium. But one game that completely blows is the dating game. I just can't do it. Frankly, I never really could. I'm sure there are a thousand things I could compare the game to in order for it to make more sense. Like fishing, fishing is probably a good example...but I don't really know how to fish either. I guess, for me, the whole idea of making a burgeoning connection with another person into a game is fucking stupid. I won't do it. When I'm interested in a person, I lay it out there. I don't do flirty, I don't do cutesy, I don't play the game. I used to think that it would be considered a refreshing change of pace. And maybe in my early twenties, it was. But now, I think people find it too intense, too aggressive, definitely too much for a city such as Seattle where everybody is slathered in a layer of stand-offishness and THEN doused in a patina of nice, so that trying to figure out if you're coming or going with people is damn near impossible. It's a little frustrating. I'm a little frustrated by it. So then I start second-guessing myself. Are my motives not as pure as I think they are? Am I really playing the game, albeit differently? Maybe I'm baiting my line with honesty and directness? Maybe I need to fire my old coach? But all that second-guessing and I'm still not going to change. John Hughes said it best, "I'd rather be alone for the right reasons, then with someone for the wrong ones." * ** ***

*Which movie is that from?
**I'm really not DOWN about this, it's just something I had on my mind and thought that if I got it out, it wouldn't be any longer.
***I'm not the slightest bit alone. I have an amazing group of people in my life.