On Your Mark. Get Set. "The Game"

           We all play it. Even those of us who pretend we aren’t playing or swear that we are done playing are still playing because attempting not to play is just as much playing as actually playing is! Yeah, confusing (and a lot of the word playing) but overall, basic sentiment here is WE ARE ALL SCREWED!!!

            Okay, okay, it’s not all that bad. I mean, people have been playing since the days of the cave (homo erectus style) and humanity has seemed to survive it so far. Sure, we all hate “the game,” wish we could just quit, but, unlike high school P.E, “women troubles” aren’t enough to get us a free pass. Hell! Like it or not, we’re trapped in “the game” and it’s full-tackle, brutal, and the rules don’t always make sense.

            Of course, as with any game, some people are better at playing “the game” than others. Like, some people wind up living pretty with hotels on the Boardwalk while the rest of us are doomed to collect our $2 rent every 10 rounds or so on one of those lowly purple properties. Seriously, half the time we don’t even wanna roll the dice anymore for fear of what we may mistakenly land on. But anyway, seems like some people go around the board constantly hitting that triple word score or always taking the ladders as the rest of us are just happy to get something on the board at all.

            Alright, so  “the game” doesn’t exactly have a board; you know, brightly colored squares that we can follow to an end, a limited amount of possible outcomes, little metal game pieces to put in our place. Guess the fact of the matter is, we’re the ones stuck playing this stupid game on a “board” as big as a planet, (literally) and unlike little chance cards, absolutely anything (and I totally mean ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING) is possible. As if that wasn’t bad enough, “the game” doesn’t even have a rulebook or a Scrabble dictionary to make sure that everyone knows what the hell is going on. I mean, in theory we’re all playing the same game but with so many freaking amended rules and strategies to outsmart each other we might as well be attempting to play Candyland on the Battleship board while using the rules of Pictionary.

            Truth is, all of us are running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to figure out who is playing what version of “the game” and whether or not we are playing “the game” correctly. You know what I mean; resisting the urge to text “that guy” because you want him to text you first, flirting with every guy except “that guy” so you seem unattainable and not so obviously desperate and obsessed with him.

            Yep, all of us are playing “the game” in our own little way and in the meantime everyone else is totally confused as to what the hell we are actually trying to achieve. Of course, as previously explained, we are incapable of ending the game because the truth is it’s the way we relate to each other, the way we feebly attempt to ensure that our own glass house of emotion isn’t destroyed by someone else’s bulldozer (or something like that.) The truth is, we each play “the game” to try and protect ourselves, act like we don’t spend hours thinking about the people we are hopelessly infatuated with, pretend that we aren’t hurt by constant unrequited love, hide the fact that our hearts flutter like mini butterflies every time we see “that guy” or he touches our hand, mask the painful surge of blackness that burns every time we see “that guy” with someone else.

            At the end of the day, “the game” is our defense. Since we don’t understand how to play, we can’t lose. Since we don't play by specific rules, we can’t show someone else our hand. Instead, we are allowed to use “the game” to shelter ourselves from the torrential storm of love, all the while insisting that it’s actually “the game” that is using us.

                       

            XOXO

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