Relationship Games

Jul 23

An easy way to differentiate between people that are young and old are how they deal with relationships. Even more important than their years (after all age is just a number) is the maturity with which they handle things.

So what do people do? They play games. What are games? They are things like:

• Girls saying no when they actually mean yes [caption id=”” align=”alignright” width=”160” caption=”Courtesy of Flickr user Karla”][/caption]

• Guys not wanting to express how they actually feel because it’s not “manly”

• Similarly guys pretending to be completely uninterested

• Girls playing hard to get (when they actually do want the pursuer to “catch” them)

• Both reading into all kinds of actions, lack of actions, subtle tones, sly looks, the way they laugh when you’re around, and all manner of intricacies that I do not have knowledge of

• A girl leading a guy (or vice versa) to think that a relationship might happen at some future time

When we play these games, it’s all smoke and mirrors. And if the goal of relationships is marriage, then how is that helpful in accomplishing that goal? It’s not.

Guys need to ask the girl out, straight up. (I had my fun being sarcastic about it On Asking A Girl Out by saying what you should not be doing.) But you need to make it crystal clear to her what you want and what you’re doing. Otherwise you’re just beating around the bush and wasting everyone’s time.

Girls need to act purposefully. You want him? Go with it if he asks you out. You don’t? Tell him the truth, brutal as it might be. Don’t sugarcoat things because that helps nobody.

These things don’t just apply to the chase, do they? I’m not even really sure why they would apply more specifically to guy/girl relationships. All I know is that I see it there more often. However, these thoughts and their ramifications could be generalized to cover any type of relationship with anyone.