I Hate Games

Hey y’all, I wrote this a few months ago because all my emotions were doing its things. Shout out to my friends Hope and Eden for helping me through the ups and downs. Thanks to my mom because I be calling her about the same ish everyday lol. This writing is not about love but also about love. Talking to the people around me helped me process my hopes for love. What my expectations were for the people I held close to me.

This is titled “I hate games” Enjoy

I Hate Games- by me January 2025

“You don’t even like playing games”

Edens right. Typical therapist. Typical best friend. I dont like any type of games. I despise monopoly, uno is tolerable,  but life is the worst. Life? It does not resemble life in the slightest. I mean there is no cancer at 22 option. There is no “parents will be divorced by your 25th birthday so buckle up space, no little brother will alienate you so make sure your insurance covers your therapy card, No you may think you are straight now but your are actually bi HOWEVER you will date someone non-binary so maybe you are actually pansexual but the omnisexual flag looks so much cuter relationship option. The game does not resemble life at all because nothing can really prepare you for the reality of heartbreak. You watch movies and are told stories of heartbreak but much like the kid in the ninth grade who put a fork in an electrical socket, we are all just waiting for the “huh so that’s how that feels” moment.

Back to games, even though i hate them, I made up a game. I play this game frequently. And it great for everyone else because i always lose. However im the only one who knows we are playing. It’s all inclusive and very exclusive. This is how you play. Rules are very simple. You set an expectation and wait for the other person to meet it. Let me explain. Let say you are dating someone who struggles to maintain contact with you, they never text and all calls have to be scheduled because you dont fit in to their busy schedule and you live states away but its fine because you have a 5-30nminute call (time length depending on their schedule) every other day so it does not bother you at all when you get on the phone one day and their super preoccupied so you tell them hey can you be more intentional with our time and instead of apologizing they simply say their tired and need to go to bed and hang up after about 5 minutes of talking. So then you initiate this game that they’re completely unaware of, where they are expected to reach out to you. To clarify, again, they are very unaware of this expectation so of course they dont meet it. And again i lose because I have to be the one to reach out first... I mean you. Not me.

But while we are on the subject of me. I use to run track for a good majority of my life and I LOVED being first. However the only real reason I loved being first is because at the end of that race someone was likely do be more proud of me than before i started. This game is different, you don’t want to be first, and if you are you are just going to be more disappointed in yourself than when you started. Because you lied to yourself. You said this time would be different. This time you would stand your ground. This time you wouldn’t crave for love and attention so much so that you ignore the pain of having to put all the effort in. This time you wouldn’t be terrified that the game would never end. You wouldn’t be scared that they would never be first and the love that you spent so long to foster may die. So you continue to be first. But you continue to lose because in this game you never win. Except that one time when your roommate wouldn’t take out the trash so you also dont take out the trash and the trash over flows so she finally takes out the trash. You won that one.