Organized Fun

Some people love games. Some of these same people simply cannot understand why I despise them. It's beyond their comprehension that I can find the idea of sitting down to a card game repulsive.

I should qualify: I dislike organized group fun. It's part of why baby showers with games are so vile. I feel exposed. In that context, even opening presents while everyone watches me is too much.

There are games I enjoy, but they are mostly played by a single person, and they often involve words. I'll play Boggle with someone else, but without scores. I only like Scrabble if we are not counting. The goal for me is interesting words, not triple word scores.

So when I downloaded Scrabble for my iTouch, I was hoping I could play by myself, against myself. When you play the computer, the computer is cheating, using the Scrabble dictionary it has in its memory. I have no such thing, nor would I ever allow it in the context of a game. "Tufa" does not count. I want words that come out of your head.

But when I played solitary Scrabble, all I got was nouns, and it's hard to make words with three "e's", a "u", an "i", an "o" and an "r." It was back to playing the computer. It takes me forever to play one game because I wind up having to use a dictionary, just like the bratty computer, to make it a fair fight. But then, I am violating my own internal rules, and I like to stick to rules. Plus, whenever there is competition involved, I shrink. I don't like it. I don't like to lose, but winning is not much better because someone still loses, and I know how that feels. Losing feels foolish. It means you have done something wrong. And I really don't like to do things wrong.

Wow, what a convoluted mess my game issues are. I think it started from playing games with my older brother (yet another reason to just have one child. As we already have a boy, we will have an older brother in the family. Older brothers seem to feel that Torment is part of their obligation to the social order). My brother would take advantage of my susceptible dumb little kid brain and do things like put the Old Maid a little higher up in his hand of cards, sticking out just a little. Smarty here would always go for it, like a dog to bacon. Then I would be ridiculed. Right now, in fact, my sister-in-law is probably reading this out loud to him, and he is smirking, remembering the joy of those times.

I hated that.

Now, when I am playing a game in a group, I am in a constant state of nervous anxiety, afraid of looking foolish when all eyes are on me if it's my turn. People assume that I don't play games because I suck, which is generally not true unless you are talking about baseball or golf or any game that involves me having to hit anything with an extension of my hand or arm, especially when that something is being hurled at my head with great speed.

For some reason, people really want to force games on me, too, which I also don't get. Like it's a personal affront that I don't like them. I love poetry, but I understand how some people could not love poetry, so I don't make people read poetry. Nor am I offended if they don't like poetry.

It will be interesting how we work this out for The Boy. Pete likes games and sports, so he might seek out that kind of entertainment for Finn, while I cringe in the corner. It's important to me, though, that he not feel forced or over-scheduled. Part of the fun of being a kid is the relative lack of schedules, responsibility, and organization.