How do you deal with losing games?

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Well, I think it has been grilled into me to be a 'good loser' - part of the 'be a nice girl' extra dose of girl behavior expected 'back when' - but I play to win - though it is not so much that get a charge from winning itself, I think - I get a charge from mastering the game. I think I just get intense. I also get my hands smacked for straightening card piles and game pieces - I can't leave them alone.

Q: "How do you deal with losing games?"

A: I become the referee ... or the Dungeon Master.

I'm not sure, but I have the same experience and usually end up avoiding games too. I sometimes have to play games with kids I babysit or at school, and even then I find it hard to lose. I usually end up letting them win or being 'judge' so I don't get stressed/worked up in front of them.

I don't play games with people very much anymore, and I kinda miss one on one games a little bit, but I don't miss group games at all. Years ago an old friend made up a way to make a good winner/loser out of me. I love to work cryptograms and we started working them in speed competitions at her house every morning before she left for work or after she came home, and the loser had to make the winner tea (we both liked a nice cup of tea), and so I got a *lot* of practice over the years at both winning and losing and I am pretty indifferent to both. If I lose at a strategy game I can get hung up trying to figure out where I went wrong. I tend not to play group games because the social interaction distracts me far too much from the game itself so that it's pretty pointless for me to play.
When I was a teen I used to play cards with my grandmother and sister a lot and that was also good winner/loser training. I can tease a little and I can take a little teasing on a good day, but I draw a line and if people tease over losing excessively or gloat I know in the past that made me snappy.

I have very little pride to be damaged, so why would I be upset about losing games? I'm used to sucking at a lot of things, and am okay with it.

I haven't played many games during adulthood, but when I was a kid, I used to cry when I'd lose. I HATED losing. Not a bad big fan of losing now, but I don't cry over it. What ticks me off the most is the times I used to play SCAT with my co-workers, and they'd celebrate each other's wins . . . but get pissed off or not react to mine. It reminds you that you are not "one" with the group.

Another highly competitive guy here. Goes for all games, including sports. My wife gets furious at the first sign of soreness, so I try to avoid them mostly anymore.

Scrabble is a funny example. I would take too long looking for the "perfect" word, and other times I would get mad at competitors for "taking my spot."

By playing the game. The object of the game is to not think about the game.

I lost the game.

(:P Hope you have a sense of humour)

I had a little laugh as this made me think about myself as a child. I was very competitive at everything when I was younger, it was probably one of the reasons I done well at sport. As I got older this strive to be the best at things declined, I remember when going into high school I saw how obnoxious people used to get when it came to sport and realized that I myself had been showing this to a lesser extent with this and other things. The feeling of losing when you take something so seriously much outlasts the feeling of a victory, at least to me. So I basically came to the conclusion that having this mindset towards games, sports and such was not beneficial in the long run. So now I take things in my stride and enjoy what I'm doing regardless of the outcome. If anything, I find I perform better at things when I have a clear mind. But its easier said than done for some people to achieve this which I can understand.

It's just a game... I'm not in it for victory.

Losing was never that big a deal. The only time I got remotely upset was when I won & got accused of cheating!
Even that was not a hassle. I have/had so few close friends, especially females I was just happy to have someone to play with/against.
It was more hurtful being excluded/not chosen for some team sports/games that I enjoyed (there were not to many of these, but I liked Soccer & Ultimate.). Being the LAST chosen? Meh, my whole school experience!

Sincerely,
Matthew

I like losing.

If you win you don't learn anything.

I used to throw temper tantrums, but I learned to not do that. It is not helpful to get angry about losing. Never losing probably means that you aren't learning as fast as you could, so I actively search out for opportunities to lose now, although I sometimes don't like it.

I had the displeasurable experience of having teammates yell at me to "Just don't do ANYTHING!", while the gym teachers simultaneously yelled at me to "DO something!" Every time I TRIED to participate, I'd mess things up and have everyone pick on me. But every time I DIDN'T participate, I'd get in trouble by the teachers. It was lose-lose regardless, so I couldn't blame kids for not wanting me on their teams- I didn't want to be there, either.




Well, as I said in my first post, I can't shake the idea that the main objective of a game is to win. If I don't feel like I'm winning, then I'm stressing over it (and not having fun.) When I end up losing in the end, I feel like I've failed to do what I was trying to do (while the other person succeeded.) The idea that the game is there just for fun is a lot more abstract than the clear goal of winning. Chances are, we were introduced to games while we were children, well before we could understand that the "point" of an activity could be something that wasn't readily apparent. I mean, the "Win" square is right there! That's where I'm trying to get! Where is the "Have fun" square? There are other ways to have fun, after all. In fact, we may have even had more fun simply setting the board up than we did while playing the game. (I know I had a lot of fun setting a LIFE board up!) The idea that games are simply for winning might have stuck with us since then.

Add on top that NTs tend to get something extra out of the socialization that comes from games. Some of us may enjoy that, too. But then, a lot of us might merely find that it adds extra stress. Maybe it changes based on the situations. Either way, when I think of all that, I'm not all that surprised that many of us can't just "have fun." Of course, this is all my conjecture with no actual research behind it. So, if anyone has any better ideas, please tell!

I'm so non-competitive, I don't know why I even bother playing games. Of course, I'd like to win and I make the effort to. I'm a graceful winner, but if I lose, it's not a big deal either.

BUT! With that said...I HATE playing with gloaters and sore losers. Sore losers I just don't play again. I usually get back at gloaters who beat me by playing them again and whipping the pants off them. Years ago I played Scrabble with a friend of mine who claimed she had never been beaten at the game. She did beat me but by only a small margin. I was proud of myself for that and said so to someone else in the room --"Hey! Susan only beat me by one point!" "That's all it takes." was Susan's response. I didn't like her attitude, so I challenged her again and beat her.