Do You Like Games, Period?

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I don't just mean Monopoly and chess. I mean all games. Examples:

-Courtship and dating are games
-Workplace competition is a game
-Video games count, but only if you're competing against a real person
-A sport involving competion against one or more people is a game
-Arguing a case in court is a game
-And on and on...

I ask because it seems like aspies--including myself--avoid many of these things strenuously. I hear all the time about how aspies think football is absurd, courtship is phony and weird, one-upsmanship is impossible to understand, and arguments are simply logic gone wrong. I am wondering whether our problem is with the games condition itself. Would you prefer a world without games?

Good questions.

I keep a collection of board games (carefully selected, interesting, easily taught ones) which have been useful in the past as a framework for social contact.

I'm not sure I could go for a world without games, as life itself can be seen as one!

Where the social interactions sport/work/courting overlap with the boardgames for me is in the basic question "What's the rules?" and, just as a boardgame with a massive rule-book might put you off playing, so the (perceived) complexity of these other life games can put one off playing them, unless the motivation is really high. (Hell's Highway, anyone?)
I could conceive of a boardgame where part of the game was to guess what the rules were, or even where different people were playing by different rules(or playing different games!), but I don't think it's one I'd go for by choice.

Even Monopoly suffers from the "house rules" problem with different familes doing things differently. "You can't do that! " "We always do!". That's there in the real world too, in spades.

Ask about the rules for the game of life, and half-a-dozen organisations will offer a text, saying "These are", and the little French guy will inform you there aren't any.

Games can be fun, but if they're too fraught, or too complex, "not worth playing" can easily be the verdict. At least from my Aspie perspective. As you point out, some "games" like <court case> can't easily be opted out of. The "knocking the board over" strategy is not really approved of, either.

I'm secretly competitive.

Not really. I'm not too big on competition since I have a hard time handling losing (not that I'm a particularly sore loser, but it eats me up quietly). And so I rarely play games at which I lose a lot.

I enjoy Clue though.

Oh [censored] yes, I love them.

I love competiting, being the best, even solving problems is fun for me because it is a game where I defeat my opponent (the problem to be solved).

There's a great book called Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibilty by James Carse. I recommend it highly, espeically for other Aspies. It's very enlightening.

In brief the distinction between finite and infinite games:

Finite - have a definite end/goal, are usually serious in nature and social in sphere, there are definite winners and losers, there are set rules that cannot be changed, the group chooses who gets to play the game, the group agrees on the rules. Finite games may include team sports, as well as business, academics, courtship, and other serious, social activity that involves competition with others.

Infinite - do not have a defninite end/goal and go on indefinitely, are usually more personal/subjective, the point is simply to play, there are no winners or losers - only players, the rules change when needed to keep the game going, the individual alone chooses to play, the individual chooses the rules. Infinite games may nclude games of spirituality, learning, art, friendships or other areas of personal growth and development.

In short, I hate finite games. I prefer infinite games. I really am not competitive and I don't handle losing very well. I also resent that I can be excluded for certain "games" by the group - as an Aspie, I'm very familiar with that phenomenon. I also have a hard time with rules that are both arbitrary and set. I can do arbitrary, but I feel that if a rule is arbitrary, it can be changed. Yet in finite games, because it's a competition and there must be a way to decide who wins and loses, the rules can't change. I understand that, but it still pisses me off.

With respect to videogames (ie. Halo, etc.), football, basketball, volleyball, ping pong, pool, chess, any kinds of debates, I'm fine with it as long as we're just having fun. As for dating games, well, that could be fun if I knew someone who played the same way...

I'm so old-fashioned that when I invite a girl back for coffee, I'm inviting a girl back for coffee.


Yes, I too note that there are other rules to "the game".

Well, I don't know that I meant anything about that (though that is another point all together), I guess I just meant compatable personalities and energies to where we could lite a good spark off of eachothers responses to things - ie. the humor, cocky stuff, mock brother/sister type play, etc..

"I guess I just meant compatable personalities and energies "

Yes, that too.
I can do it if I work at it, but that's a "performance" and exactly not what's being aimed for. <Let's work at being relaxed> is not quite nonsensical, but it's not ideal either.

Just occasionally, at odd times, I click with people at work (I've been there twelve years). But since they still regularly misunderstand, and I mis-read, there's always a little bit of tip-toe and caution.

Do you find things get better with time, or is it more and more like speed dating (not that I'd know) and that if it's not an instant match, people are not into taking the time to gt to know?

Me too, but I think I'm not very good at hiding the secret. I'm so indifferent that it surprises people when I show interest in the outcome of games. I think it just reflects on my need to be an expert in everything, but obviously being an expert in nothing.

Evidently I'm not doing horrible in the looks department, I get flirted with enough, just that the trouble comes in when they realize I'm not fully wired how other guys are - that comes in with them flirting with me off of certain angles that I feel I can't do anything with and them realizing that I'm not who they were guessing I was. On the other hand if I get to know someone I'm usually fine, just that when that happens it's usually along the platonic track. I think my odds of finding another girlfriend are getting better with time though, probably from both ends. I'm doing better at being an NT projection of myself when I'm out and it seems like as I get older a lot of the outward vibe immaturity that used to really wreak havoc on first impression, no matter how far my head was from it, has gone a bit too (getting those real judgemental and disgusted glances on first site from some new female employees and having to do the balancing act till they realized I was cool - that's gone in the last 5 years from once every 2 months down to not at all).

i don't like games, but i do like playing. the play itself is the purpose. dating is perplexing, once someone asked me to go back to their's for a cup of tea, and i replied 'it's ok, i have 80 tea bags at home'. other people thought this was a clever rebuff but i was being serious.

I am always in a game within a game within a game and it explains why I'm often confused

Ah, this one I know. The ability to see too much and too little *at the same time*
Perception: social, logical, and sensory, all seem liable to this in the AS world.

I've been playing about with a piece entitled "Lost in the levels", an article that's threatening to turn into a book, and a self-illustration!

One should not contemplate the sub-atomic physics of a tyre/road interaction whilst driving to Cambridge. Nor the epistemological difficulty raised by the apparently simple concept of "Cambridge". Mere mundanes don't appear to have this problem.

But that could be a perception/communication problem on my part...

<<<You are in a maze of little twisty passages, all different.>>>

Lol, I just call that zoning out. I've had plenty of times where I'd be philosophically thinking about how much of a fine line there is between following a basic social or driving rule, not following it, and really being amazed that certain rules (particularly in driving) really don't get broken that often. Part of that for me though I think was that I was still recovering from brain damage (or bending) from too many years on antipsychotics and SSRI's, even a few years after being off that stuff I still felt rather dimly lit consciously - as I've gotten my dopamine levels back up a lot of that has stopped just because knowing something vs. feeling it in perspective to life in the here and now aren't two seperate things anymore.