Is there a place for games in relationships? Yes, if it’s for sex or because you actually don’t want the relationship to succeed. If you actually want the relationship to work, game-playing just ensures you sabotage it.
People tend to play games because they genuinely believe that this is what you need to do. They want to gain an advantage, get one over, have the upper hand over a partner. Sometimes you can get away with it, but more often than not, no matter how clever you think you’re being, it’s likely that your actions have registered on the manipulative scale. And this puts you on a terrible footing.
You don’t trust in things taking a more natural route, so you attempt to manipulate the proceedings and the outcome. While you may consider your actions to be quite innocent, most game players would not like the tables turned on them. Also, it’s a form of gaslighting.The trouble is, there are lots of people playing games out there and it leads people to believe that this is standard fare in the dating world if the ‘fittest’ are to survive. The mentality of playing games also limits the player’s vulnerability. It’s one thing if you have succumbed occasionally to playing these games, but the likelihood is that it’s a dating behaviour of yours that limits your ability to [healthily] engage in relationships.
Dating becomes a sport, so you will become less emotionally available, more of a commitment-phobe and more attracted to emotionally unavailable people. It all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of doomed relationships, anyway.
I don’t for one moment suggest that people run around wearing their heart on their sleeves. Still, I suggest, if you are looking to be in a relationship that involves honesty, open communication, love, care, trust and respect, that you save the game playing for rainy Sunday afternoons when you need to get the Scrabble out or play Doctors and Nurses in the bedroom.
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